Date: 2006-03-30
From: Standing Bear Farm

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

3/30/06 - 4//3/06A summary of days on the farm. It was tough to keep up a daily journal when most of my time was spent washing windows, doing hostel laundry, sweeping out buildings and soaking in the stream.Four people contribute most to my experience: Curtis, Smokin Jeff, Sprocket and Underground. Underground is another hiker doing work for stay. He's on his fourth thru-hike attempt, financing it from disability checks. I don't know his specific disability. You don't ask those questions here. You get those stories when they're offered. On first meeting you think the guy's a little slow. He has a speech impediment and makes daily calls to a counselor. He's not slow. He's also hilarious. He got his name on his first hike attempt when he buried a radio on the apporach trail to Srpinger Mountain and was dubbed Underground Radio. He just had too much gear and lightened the load. After four days and hysterical nights by the fire he hit the trail again for Hot Springs. Curtis owns and runs the place. He lives here with his wife Maria and two daughters. He looks a little like Jim Varney, the "hey Vern, it's Ernest" guy, but with the cool Southern style of Tommy Lee Jones. He's informal and country, the ten in Tennessee. He's been great to me.Smokin Jeff is a hiker's hiker, mid-forties, scraggly beard and long hair. He loves the Smokies and has hiked 8-- of the 900 miles of trail in the park. He'll tell you where to find the best views, streams, waterfalls, cemeteries, house foundations, and a structurally sound church still standing out there in the woods. He's got all the history and love of the folks who lived out there in the hills. Sprocket's a river guide from Reno who takes groups into the John Muir Wilderness in Montana. He's rafted all the rivers in Tennessee., North Carolina and most of the rest of the country. He's early thirties and has been everywhere. Big reader, well educated, and can and does tell stories for days. He met Curtis through Maria and has a home on the place whenever he needs it. He makes it clear that he's not a hiker. Highlights of my stay: campfires, hikers, the Front Porch.Whether there's been hikers here or not, there's a fire every night, usually into morning hours. There's usually a mason jar of moonshine or a bottle of Jim Bean or Wild Turkey being passed around. If Jeff's not holding forth on hiking, the park, bears, snakes or being the troll under the bridge, Sprocket's holding forth on everything else. After the hikers are asleep, an evening ends when Jeff fall off the bench. On a good ight Curtis will instruct Yankee hikers on Souther protocol and manners.There's been a different group of hikers through most nights, each with a different character, some attractive and some not. Either way, they hike out next morning and I stay. I'll see one group and hope they don't stand for all the ones behind them. I'll see another and want to hike out with them. People who have passed through include Turtle M and Turtle D, Brave Foot, Kurly, Swanson, Pebbles, Snake, Squirrel, Subzero, Tagalong and husband, John and Lily, Tex, a father and son team and lots of others.Maria's family owns and runs a Mexican restaurant called The Front Porch. It's open Friday and Saturday nights. Great food and live blue grass. I went with a crowd last Friday. I left stuffed and still clapping for the band. The ladies clogging on the dance floor were icing on the cake. Sure, I'd rather be hiking, but Standing Bear has been good to me. I feel like part of the fabric of the place and it's all part of the hike.