Date: 2007-07-27
From: St Thomas Episcopal Church Hostel, Vernon NJ

To: Springhill Suites, Danbury Conn
Miles today: 0.0

What a hostel and how clean! I talked with "Bobcat" some, she is really a cool "cat". I went up to the front of the church and waited for my ride to A hotel for a weekend of rest. While waiting, I noticed a guy trimming some bushes. I talked with him awhile. It was "Fryar" AT 1982. He did not want me to take his picture. He said the real story was the church which I went inside and took pictures of 200 year old stained glass and was kind of struck by the cross on the alter. I had to kneel and say a little prayer. It was like I was back in Grapevine(TX) Stadium in the late 70's with James Robinson giving the alter call. The Holy Spirit hit me the same way. I have not went to church much recently and cannot say that I have ever been totally alone in a small church like this before. It was very moving and humbling. I have been a freewheeling, rambling man for so long and living by my own code that I had to do some re-dedicating while I was there. My ride did show up and and spent the rest of the day recuperating and indulging in all that America can give.Flashback to 1990: "Daydreamer and Grasshopper" were staying in Hot Springs after trail days for awhile and I was hiking all by myself. I spent the night in The Little Laurel Shelter with 2 thru hikers and Ober & his grandson. Ober was 80 years old and him and I stayed up talking until daylight. That is the truth. Some of the best stories that I have ever heard. He had plenty of memories of the Mtns in the early 1900's. He had lived on a farm near Greenville(NC, TN, SC ?) all his life. The greatest story was the story of The Mehlungeons. OK, here goes: The original explorers of the SE mnts were the Spanish, De Soto & the like. They looked everywhere for gold and found some precious and semi-precious stones in the Appalachians: Rubies, Sapphires, and some emeralds. They kept small communities that saw to mining and shipping the stones out to the sea. Well, after the Spanish Armada was destroyed; they could not support these communities anymore; so, they just abandoned the Spanish subjects that were there. Now the Spaniards themselves were above doing any of the day to day chores of such hamlets and left this to captured sailors that they captured in naval battles. These peoples were Portuguese, Turks, Balkans, and North Africans. Well, 200 years go by and the Scotch Irish show up and are totally flabergasted to go over the moutnain ridges and find small farms with cabins and barns. These people approached the Scotch Irish and said, "Portuguesa, Portuguesa" pointing to their own chests. These people were said to have a dark blueish tint to their skin with dark hair and eyes. They were different than the indians. They were definetly European in appearance. Over the years these folks inter-mixed with some indians, escaped slaves, survivors of shipwrecks on the coast that came inland to avoid malaria, and the survivors of Jamestown and other such communities that failed. Well, of course my kin, the Scotch Irish, had deeds to these lands and called them indians and burned them out. These people have been persecuted up to the present day. These people even denounced their own ancestory to assimulate with the Scotch Irish. Well, I know you are going, "Zero, you better get off of that trail soon!" That is exactly what the 2 thru hikers said when they woke up the next day. The Doctor thru hiker said, "you know that old man is crazy, the people that he is talking about are sufferers of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome." Anyway, Ober made all of us fat back bacon with toasted white Bunny Bread and I was in awe. 10 years later, I went with an old girlfriend to look at colleges in the Va, NC, TN Appalachian "vortex" and ended up in historic Jonesborough, Tn. Capital of the nearly created state of Franklin. I wondered into a local historical societies library and nearly fell down when I saw a book called, "Mehlungeons". I went back to the hotel, and read the entire 200 page book all night. Kind of upseting my girlfriend. The author, whom I cant remember, had DNA evidence; linguistic evidence; Genealogical evidence; etc. to proove that there was in fact such a lost race. Where have all the old timers gone with the oral histories? They used to be such a great part of the trail.