Date: 2004-11-11
From: Doyle Hotel, Duncannon

To: Duncannon
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

From very close to my window, a piercing siren sounded at precisely 9 p.m. last night and 6 this morning. I assumed it must be a signal for night and morning shifts at a local factory. Turns out that the timing coincided only with highway accidents, and the siren alerts local firefighters to duty. From my fourth floor corner room at the Doyle, I can see the fire engines of the Duncannon Fire Company returning to their red brick building. The Doyle is a gem of an old hotel, established under a different name in 1905 by owner/builder Adolphus Busch (of beer fame), and replacing a "block building" built there more than a century earlier. Vickey, the proprietor for the past three years, showed me pictures of the Doyle when a flood put the first floor under seven feet of water some years ago (in the 90s?), and this year when the flood water from Hurrican Ivan (or was it Jeanne?) came within inches of flooding the ground floor all over again. Her computer screensaver is a photo of her standing in the bar's corner door, looking out grimly over the creeping water which laps at the wooden pillars that hold up the second floor porch over the sidewalk, and is inching across the sidewalk to the door.Vickey's begun the process of renovating the old lady, a thru-hiker mecca of many years. New beds last year. New interior paint. A new roof is next. Vickey does what she can as she can, utilizing all available resources. More than one hiker has left the trail to "work for stay" at the Doyle. Shrek, a sweet, burly, blond-bearded fellow with teeth like TicTacs and a pronounced underbite, changes the sheets and helps out in the kitchen inbetween games and rounds of NeoPets on the bar's computer. When he's flush with cash, he says, he takes off hiking again for a few weeks. Another hiker, a transplant from Philadelphia, came to the Doyle a month ago after most of a thru-hike and has been here ever since, with the exception of the past week, when, after being hit by a train (!), he spent time in Harrisburg for reconstructive surgery on his right arm. Tonight he's back in the homey hotel bar, arm in a cast, drinking with his left hand, and tonight he'll retire back to his lodger's room upstairs, home again.The freight train blows and clacks along the river front, one or two rows of houses from Market Street, the main drag. An excellent breakfast is to be had at Goodie's, across from the Doyle, starting at 5 a.m. each morning. Gentleman retirees in baseball caps and assorted uniform shirts embroidered with their names on chest pockets begin the day with a Special and a smoke. There's hot sauce for the eggs, homemade apricot jam for the whitebread toast, and fresh homemade sausage, molded into fists without the fuss of casing; sausage gravy over biscuits is served with a side of home fries -- not the store-bought kind.The American flag hangs from every lamppost today in honor of Veterans Day, and several paintbrush wielders are at work on a Community Mural, depicting a green adn bucolic vista of the Susquehanna River behind the railroad tracks (or maybe before they were there?)After seeing off my hiking buddies of the last few days -- Tiny, Birch and No Agenda, who, with the expectation of rain, are planning to build a make-shift shelter tonight from the tarp-covered lumber at the site where Darlington Shelter used to be -- I make my way to the Otterbein Methodist Church on Main Street, where hikers are invited to check their e-mail in the church library.Two church ladies, busy with a mailing of offertory envelopes to church members, help me to sign on to the computer. The room is set up for after-school tutoring and Sunday school projects -- tables grouped at the center of the room and supplies of books, paints, construction paper, et cetera stacked and shelved around the edges of the room. Tina, a 50-ish mother of two, is photocopying a project for her younger son, who works at the local Head Start program as an art teacher.After talking intensely for an hour or two, Tina is convinced that "God brought us together today." Her father-in-law is in the hospital, her husband is feeling guilty and in despair, and she feels at loose ends, but finds solace in her church work. I share that I'm anxious to finish the trail and get back to teaching or some other steady work, but have also been thinking a great deal about marriage and children over the past few weeks. She asks if she may add my name to her "prayer team's list." Touched, I say yes. "Would you like for us to pray for you under your trail name or your real name?" I tell her my name and she writes it in green magic marker on a half sheet of paper and underscores it. As we chat further, she adds the names of each member of my family -- parents, brothers, sister-in-law, nephews and niece -- as well as my desire for a mate, in magic marker on the page.As she completes her photocopying she asks if we may pray together. We stand, take each other's hands, and bow our heads, as she delivers an eloquent prayer for both our families, barely looking at the notes she has taken. Finding tears rolling down both our cheeks, we conclude with a hug, then talk for another hour or so. Discovering that I am an atheist, she wonders aloud if her talk of "the Lord's will" regarding this or that event in her life rings hollow for me. It doesn't. We get into a discussion about religion, the power of fellowship, community, thinking of others, and praying for others -- whether to God or to the universe at large.All in all, it was a moving few hours; very cathartic for me, especially as this nearly year-long journey comes to an end. The brief connections I've made with people in towns along the trail buoy me up tremendously, make me want to live in a smaller community than the one I've lived in for so long. These encounters help me to slow down and take in my surroundings, instead of being so constantly concerned about making my mileage every day. However, they also make me wish that all of this will be over soon so that I can rejoin my own community, once again feel part of something greater than myself, my appetite, my need for shelter and warmth. For as satisfying as it has been to simplify my life to what I carry on my back each day, and my daily goals to meeting just my most basic needs, I long to be reconnected to others, to accomplish goals at a higher level than simple physical survival, to move back into the upper echelons of Maslow's Hierarchy.