Date: 2003-03-05
To: Why?
Miles today: 0.0

It was early last year that I realized that I was rapidly getting older (seems to be more rapid the older I get) so if I was going to meet some of my yet-to-be-accomplished life-goals, I better get started. A wake-up call to me was the realization that too many friends have either died in the last few years or have deteriorating health, so hey, the candle is getting shorter and I¢ve done the teaching bit for a long time.Well, the result of this line of thinking was that it¢s time to get away from the comforting arms of academia and see what else I can do. Quitting a job that I truly enjoy, saying goodbye to good friends, leaving a beautiful school-provided home, and giving up more than a year¢s salary was not an easy decision. March 25th I plan to start my trek on the Appalachian Trail with the goal of doing the entire trail in five to six months. This is a life-long ambition and even if I don¢t finish, I want to at least try before my body starts to fall apart. (Who was it that said ¢it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all¢. I have tried to work out an itinerary, with specific times when I hope to pick up mail drops of food sent by my good wife Judy (Cricket); however, much is dependent on variables I cannot control - weather, weak knees, getting lost, rest stops, etc.I have had a lot of fun buying new gear to get my total pack weight down to 30 pounds, and I am now drying meats and vegetables. At times the house smells like a pizza parlor (pepperoni drying) or a cheap hamburger joint (onions drying, now done outside) but the weight loss by drying food is amazing and well worth the effort.        More than a few colleagues have asked me why I would ever want to brave the elements and walk over two thousand miles. Seems to me to be good question, but not all good questions have simple answers or even answers at all. Maybe there simply is no purpose, or at least not one that can be articulated. The short-term goal is clear, but why bother, why take the chance or foul weather, insect bites, scavenging bears, treacherous rocks, ankle-twisting roots, and insidious critters such as hornets, Giardia, and snakes? Good question. Yes indeed, why do I have to do this, even if I don¢t finish, why do I even have to try? Life is good in Andover, why leave?                     "It's a dangerous business, Froto.                      Going out the door, step onto the road                     and if you don't keep your feet,                     there's no knowing where you might                     be swept off too."   - Tolkien - Lord of the RingsIn Walden Pond, Thoreau wrote, ¢ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived¢. Indeed. However, there is more to this decision than trying to ¢ live deliberately¢.I find joy in simply walking in the woods, there is joy in simply being there, hearing the wind in the pines, a warbler claming its territory, and waking up suddenly to ¢things that go bump in the night¢. There is a sort of meditation about walking up and down a mountain, a level of calm, and wholeness that lets you feel life that surrounds all of us. If you have never experienced this, then you will not really understand why I want to walk alone in the woods. But why go alone? Right, another good question. I expect and hope that a few nephews, nieces, sons-in-law, and grown children will join me from time to time, but most of the time, I will have other hikers for human companionship. Then again, no one is ever alone in the woods.