Date: 2010-10-30
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Miles today: 0.0

Wolfman got eaten by the mushroom. Well, if it were Super Mario Brothers he did. Remember that game when Nintendo first came out? How Luigi and Mario had to dodge all the dangers on their quest to save the queen. There were muchrooms that floated along the ground that you could either hop on, or kill with fireballs if you had them. There were hungry plants that came out of pipes with teeth trying to eat you, and endless holes which you could fall into. When you died, the game had a death tune it played before it reloaded the level....if you had one of your three lives left. The trail is no different than Super Mario Brothers. There are dangers lurking all the time, and falling dead off the screen is always a possibility.Wolfman stabbed himself with a knife. I wasn't there (of all the times for the one medical professional not to be present). Apparently he was cutting an avacodo when the knife slipped and went right thru his hand. Now my first question was not "is he ok"? It was "where the hell did he get an avacodo". I mean they don't grow on trees, and its not one of our hiker food groups. Apperently he bought it in town during resupply and had become fond of ham, cheese and avacodo raps for lunch. He left on a plane this morning, has already seen a doctor and is scheduled for surgery on tuesday. He sliced the tendon in his hand and was unable to move his pinky. Obviously we are all in shock and completely bummed. "I can't believe Louie is gone" was a phrase spoken at least a thousand times today.We mostly called him Louie. Even though we all have trail names, sometimes our first names dominate. I am never called "John" but rather "Church", short for Churchill. He was one of the Jersey three, the other two being Stoker and myself. He and stoker were frat brothers at Penn State, graduating last May. We teased him about his Italian descent relentlessly, and swore he was destined to own a pizza joint in North Jersey, although in all actuality he is very intelligent and will probably be suit and tie guy on wall street, and definately will be wealthy. His Mom called him 400 times a day. She is not just a typical protective Italian mother, but right off the boat from Italy. Well, I guess they stopped coming off the boat a long time ago, but she was definately right off the plane. When we visited Louies place in Jersey we found out that both his mother and sister were stunningly beautiful, and like good friends we teased him about this relentlessly. He has a typical Jersy accent. Most of his phrases begin with "YO", "Bro" or "Dude". He was the ultimate schemer. He could find a trail or routhe anywhere with his trust Iphone and google earth. He was fat. Well he was when he started but not anymore. He would be the first to joke about how over weight he got during his seniour year of college, and what it was like climbing Katahdin at 270 pounds. He was Stokers keeper. We have no idea how we are going to keep Stoker in line without him. You see, Louie was the one with the gift of reason. Stoker comes up with the most outrageous of ideas,a nd Louie always has to bring him back to earth. "Bro, we cab't hike 5 miles an hour for 112 hours straight to make up for the three zero days you want to take". We recently toyed with the idea of renaming Wolfman. We were going to call him "Lance". for those of you who have been following, you'll recall that he had to go to the hospital in NH to have a MRSA abcess lanced. Well, it didn't stop there....he has gone two the hospital at least two more times to have other abcesses lanced. We think maybe he just grew to fond of the vicodin they give him every time he goes. He could sweat naked in Antartica. I mean the kid just sweats gallons. Now most of us stopped sweating profusely a long time ago. Not wolfman, even the mre thought of hiking would open his sweat glands right up.That boy could snore. We often times refered to him as "Snorasorus". When he fell asleep, heaven and earth shook around us. If you have trouble falling asleep, your only hope was to beat him to the eye lids....He was as good a friend and hiking buddy you could hope to have, and he will be missed. We spent over 1200 miles together, and endured so much. When my Mom Mom died, his text messages reminded me that I was thought of and missed. It just won't be the same without him.YO LOUIE!! This ones for you brotha. Godspeed and nothin' but love. Hike your own hike.