Stories

Below are unedited excerpts from my journal from September 2002 to November 2002 traveling Maine to Massachusetts. Current excerpts are on my blog at http://www.whitecrowwalking.blogspot.com. I hope you will enjoy them. Please let me know what you think by emailing me at jwc@whitecrowwalking.com. I can't check my email often but I'd love to hear from you and will get back to you as soon as possible.

15 September 2002

It would be wonderfully easy to say that a few months ago I threw some gear in a backpack after halfheartedly thinking up the idea of exploring America entirely on foot. The truth is I've been haunted by this idea longer than I have ever been in love with anything, or anyone. In my heart it became the one steadfast thing that gave me comfort when nothing else made sense, or measured up to the hopes I had. The walk became my secret passion. I would buy anything for her, and over the years I did. I became a gear junkie.

When my military adventures weren't enough, I shared the company of Colin Fletcher, Peter Jenkins, Barbara Savage and many other contemporary explorers through their books. When I completed my tour with the 82ND Airborne Division in the eighties I was a bit wired, a little naïve, a lot younger and ready push my limits. I was crazy. I knew there were things in life, in this country even, that I still needed to explore. I had reached the point where I had to find out for myself--not from books, movies or the good intention of my peers-- where life could take me. For a dozen years, and in many different ways, I've tried to settle down, but it was always impossible to rest in one place while my heart watched the door. I no longer wanted to be a spectator of someone else's written experience. The fever to explore was firmly embedded in my flesh. I wanted to witness America, the creation, for myself.

Jumping out of airplanes doesn't do favors for your knees, just as 39 years doesn't do favors for your back. I realized that my procrastination would have to come to an end. If I really wanted to leave the armchair, and was seriously thinking that I could explore the peoples and land of North America I needed to set a firm date. I also needed to train carrying the equipment that I would need to preserve my life, and my stories. I was ready to breathe for the first time as a truly free soul. What began to wake me in middle of the night was no longer the fear of the walk but rather the fear on not attempting the walk.

This is my story--my adventure. This is why at nearly forty years old I left my log cabin, family, a slew of belongings, and countless other wonderful people and material things. It is strange that sometimes the hole inside us needs everything lost to begin to fill the void.

17 September 2002

I am constantly amazed by my foolish heart, and where it leads me. Alexcia walks the hill toward Jordon Pond house from the Cobble Stone Bridge #24 in Acadia National Park just off the coast of Maine. I am already sick with want for her company. My pack is thrown open by my hands, spilling out the gear I spent two and half days packing and re-packing. Weaning down ounces to save pounds now means so much less. Everything I have here is all that I now own for sure. It is littered around me just so I could get to this fresh pad to record this miserable moment of wanting gone bad. We will be a long time waiting (no matter how long) to dance for any silly reason in our kitchen while breakfast or dinner sings on the stove behind us.
Days for everything in our life are numbered. There are days for sadness, days for joy, and days to love. If exceptionally blessed with luxury, we may even have days to walk. Squandering days that we could be close is now stupid to me. My stomach pains like it took a good punch. It has. I know by now the keys are turning in the ignition. Months of walking and years of preparation have not hardened my heart to the woman that now drives from Cadillac Mountain, away from me. Her hot eyes now retrace roads that we drove over together, arriving here at Acadia National Park two days ago. The same fever that throbs good-bye on my face is also a bittersweet tide upon hers. Looking lost before I begin I gather my clothes, and begin folding once my gear once again.

18 September 2002

Today the flood of emotion has seeped into the earth and I am in love with the rich prospect of living walking, meeting and discovering a dearer life. The residual effect of the sunrise stains the ridge of the mountains where earth touches sky. The pond in front of me is the blue of the skies belly. Everything is made round with the song of the first wild loon that I have ever heard.

2000 hours. The wind picks up. If it were not for the brightness of the stars I would have bet anything on rain. In this land of no camping, I have no choice but to not use a tent. Throughout the night large slugs move across my body. Although this sounds revolting is a gentle sensation. Silent travelers cover me, and my island of new equipment as I try to sleep on this ancient forest floor. It is only the travelers coming across my face and eyes that temporarily wake me. Like cool tears that know nothing of gravity the slugs move up and across my head. With gentle fingers, unsure at first what I am removing, I begin peeling the visitors from my exposed skin and eyelids, and toss them onto the leaf litter. Once I fall back to sleep it isn't long until another tourist ascends the summit of my face.

19 September 2002

Walking about 0800 I hesitate against the morning chill, and procrastinate in the velvet warmth of my down bag. It is still too warm for my 20 degree bag, but it is bliss compared to the morning air. Tossing and turning while watching the lake below, and ocean beyond, through limbs of my camp is an easy alternative to rising. My right knee complains as I break this crude camp of a plastic sheet and a sleeping pad in a circle of equipment.
0915 hours. The pocket cell phone was a decadent luxury last night. Half asleep beneath a curtain of trembling stars I called Alexcia. We talked until the battery grew weak about love, and the simple events left behind that make this wanderer miss home. We gave up our emotions to each other one last time. With a push of the button my greatest friend is gone. Leaving makes the curtains of home dance, and the sheets smell ridiculously sweet. I wonder about my reasons for this walk. Is it just a desire to discover my true self, or is there something else trying to pull the cotton from my eyes? Does my skin remember the thrill of jumping out of a C130 aircraft in the middle of the night, trading the smell of sweat, and vomit for a rush of air while my heart beats against all my ribs at once? In the belly of my heart that remembers better than my brain, do I yearn for searing heat or splintering cold rather than this yawn that will not leave my mouth? Am I tired of not tasting life in each mouthful of breath I swallow? Haven't I already looted the spoils from these mines? Can I do it again, and retain my life? Am I too old to begin this walk, or was I ever young enough for this journey?
1620 hours. Eagle Lake is breath taking. While I sit eating dried meat and roasted corn a crow tells me I am not alone. I caw back in the voice I have practiced since my youth. Surprised he regains silence. Mornings are contracts between mouth, mind and joints. The treaties sound like old white man promises to my bones, but they want to believe, and so they rise and walk. There are parts of my flesh that consider war with the rest.
1745 hours. I again walk late into the woods. It melts closed behind me like black spring water. The tipi tent stays stowed. Except for my sleeping bag, I sleep and wake naked to the elements. I am giddy and astonished that it took me so many years to reunite with what the Creator gives us to experience in this beautiful raw form.

20 September 2002

Today is the conclusion of the carriage trails on Acadia. I wish
these were the gentle slopes, descents and climbs taking me home, but in truth the walk has not begun until I step away from the starting circle of this island. My nerves are happy, mild and rested. I am spoiled and covered with fresh stardust from sleeping without a tent for several nights. Tomorrow the dust comes off.
1530 hours.
Operation Covert: I am at Acadia's welcoming center. I teeter-tottered into the rest room and dig out my power hookup to charge the cell phone. Of course the outlet is by the sink and hand dryer by the open doorway. Guilt is at my heart and fingers, all of which tremble like those of an outlaw. How long will the charge take? I shave. Wow! I wash face, hands, and bandana. I write and try to look very innocent, intent on getting details down about Acadia. As soon as I heard of Cadillac Mountain and the sun rising on this mountain before it touches any other point in America, I knew that this was where my journey (whatever its final length or success) had to begin. A half an hour passes. Only one line out of three register on the telephone's graph that shows the battery's strength. I am beginning to hate this bathroom. I think I have to totally reevaluate that solar panel. Another hour passes. Still one charge line! Ugh! Okay--I feel like a pervert hanging out in a bathroom taking notes. The pack is the only thing that keeps the freak police from coming to collect me. STILL ONE LINE! I should have timed this before now. Now I am more than curious. How many burgers will I need to eat at Wendy's to complete the charging of the cell-phone? It is 1630 hours. I'll have to find a better way. Especially when one line on the cell phone graph is about ten minutes on the phone.

Bad-bad-bad. The wind is tearing rather than blowing. This is my third tent site tonight, minus the tent. I've walked three or four miles since Acadia's welcome center. The first site just happened to be the home of a million fire ants. I moved their log, set camp and became the target of their quick fury. Same field, different site, no dead stump to move, same result. Now I am on a stone-wall above a small creek. The stonewall is as narrow as my mummy pad at its widest point. I scratch and abuse my equipment but I have passed the point of concern. Soon new bites are radiating the thick warmth, hitting all over my body again. Like a drunk soldier I moan from the wall slapping my body with heavy hands. My gear is strapped to my pack as if I've never camped before. I find that I have to talk myself down. With words like I am talking to a child, I tell myself that we will sleep soon, and that I am sorry. It sooths my fury, and eases the knots in my spine. My headlamp is set again on my forehead, as I wander through the roadside hedge out into the tar at 2400hrs. I wander along the roadside for half a dozen miles feeling less sleep drunk but finally admitting I am wasted. After entering the woods where no lights from homes come to me, I curl up at the base of a large tree and sleep. Finally there are no ants.

21 September 2002

0900 hours. A blonde pulls up to the country store I rest in front of. Climbing out of her green pick-up I notice her shades mirroring from a pretty face, a white tank top pulled thin over a full bra, and brown Carhart pants. Walking by she offers me a soft smile that melts every thought in my head. The romance of being a man spills over me. Explorer. Discovering a country. For this moment the fire ants are forgotten. The idea of experiencing this country feels really good again.
So much of life is not in the having but rather in the being. I refold my map on lines that already begin to tear, and smile through the last of my Spicy V-8. Today I begin to fall in love with this walk.

It is 1000 hours, and people are gathering for the garlic and smoked food fest at the micro brewery across the street. I've already been over to the brewery and made a few introductions, and I explain what I am doing. Suddenly I am thankful for the days I spent at Acadia National Park walking the carriage roads. I wanted to start walking east the first day I began but a clip in the newspaper about this food festival struck my interest. It is already late in the year. I know that there will be few gatherings remaining. I decided to spend the first week getting used to my backpack, and waiting for this festival. This week has been a wonderful prelude for food, company, and yes, beer. I approach the man in charge, Doug, and tell him that I want to be involved. In half a minute I am wearing my own brand new t-shirt made only for volunteers. In my right hand is a pint glass with classy blue logo, " BAR HARBOR REAL ALE, ATLANTIC BREWING COMPANY, BAR HARBOR, MAINE." I am free to fill and re-fill the glass with all the beer I want. No charge! Soon half a dozen volunteers and myself are huddled around a plastic garbage can husking garlic just like K.P. duty in the army, only we all smile and tell stories that keep us from being strangers long. I make fast friends. My pack sits with the rain cover on, hiding everything of value as I rush through the day helping people with their food, and delivering beer. Over and over I contemplate how complete this day is. Even when the crowd grows to over a thousand people I am carefree. The weather is perfectly warm and clear. Hours ago a sea of ants drove me mad. Now I am among the rich, the middle-class, and the sincerely happy to be alive. The autumn air swirls with smoking wood that flavors goat, and pink shrimp. Ice cold beer fills our heads as wonderfully as the live music. We all dance even as we sit and eat. I eat raw garlic dipped in dark chocolate, feeling it grow sharp in my cheeks. Too soon the crowd leaves for home. A few faces linger at the outside bar with mine. We share stories of traveling the world. Each of us grabs the mental hand of the listeners, and we are all in Belfast, Ireland with a gang of streetwise punks taunting our ears. We are on a boat off Mexico. We are a dozen places, but for now we are in the hand of another, and it better than being in a tent alone. We are all still sober. Small voices begin to surface in the minds of those that have someone at home waiting. One by one the small group thins until I am alone walking into the woods behind the brewery. Listening to the quiet sounds of the town I wait in my tent for small voices to talk me to sleep.

22 September 2002

1200 hours. Down the road from a Wal-mart, that I had no need to stop at, I strike it rich. Free pails of tiny wild blueberries. A sign on the ground reads blueberries for sale. I guess the idea was abandoned along with the berries. I look for a money cup, and have some change ready. Nothing. I unclip my titanium mug, dust off the ants, and half fill my cup with pure blue sugar. Prior to now I had no idea that 8oz. of blueberries could alter an afternoon.

Yesterday's festival of garlic and smoked food sailed by in a great swirl of flavors, and all the free micro brew beer I could drink. Not having the desire to be sick or mentally lost, I gained and maintained a sweet euphoric tingle in my head while I made countless new friends. The pack is extremely overweight today, but my head is a lighter load of thinking. Tomorrow there will be a post office visit, and I'll wave good-bye to things I couldn't live without a week ago. If your swimming the ocean and your belongings don't float you leave them. Walking I need to float too. My body is only moving at fifteen miles a day because of this load and because my body is still adapting to its new life. If the pack can loose 15 lbs of gear I'll gain a third more miles, hurt less, smile more, and have less chance of injury. My other gear will also wear better. Everything drags now. I am amazed I've done so much and lasted this long. I set camp with just a screen teepee. About 2200hrs a few drops of rain fall. It takes not even a minute to throw the weatherproof fly over the netting and loop the stakes. In an hour it is pouring and the tent drums me to sleep.

23 September 2002

Today I better understand my dogs back home. Even with the desire to continue walking into the gentle rain, there is the urge to close my eyes and recharge, but I force my legs to start walking.
When I see the hope of water I jump the guardrails (well step over), and use my staff to decend down the steep tall bank to the forest below. Coming through the trees I see the most wonderful sign, a houseless lake. With campgrounds closed for the season I see nothing but a lone dock and beautiful water. Now a modest pro with the tent, I set camp in the most rugged and inhospitable place surrounded by trees and boulders. Morale is high tonight. I carried nearly a gallon of extra water expecting a dry camp but I have no complaints after my first bath since my trip began. It is unbelievable that the loud road is above all this beauty.
Thirteen years ago long after reading the writings of Peter Jenkins, Colin Fletcher an appreciation entered my head that I too had an independent longing that itched my feet, soiled relationships and made a mockery of a career. We all have a story. Sometimes our stories are sadly the lives we live in spite of the roar in our blood for something with less defined edges. I believed this walk would tire of me and just go away if I kept my life busy enough. No calm came to my mind. Real peace refused to sleep in my bed. My life was for so long half-alive, and I have been wanting. My story was wanting.

24 September 2002

There will be many nights that I will long for a camp as beautiful as this lakeside in Orland. It is incredible. To wake to crows, sleep by loons and have hot coffee and oatmeal in the cool morning air blowing across the water into my tent. This is truly a gloriously simple gift.
1300 hours. As a fluke, I pass a radio station for 89.9, 102.9 fm. I decide to stop. After talking to several people about who I am and what I am doing, Dennis gives me an interview on tape discussing my walk. It will go over the air tomorrow, or on next week's show. It am very exciting doing my first interview. My answers are not exactly what I want to say, but I am excited and just I go with it. The walk becomes more real.
1830 hours. I've already walked fifteen miles when I hit the Knox Bridge. It is five in the afternoon, and the traffic is going full bore. The bridge is under construction with large signs stating no sidewalk, but there are no signs stating how pedestrians should get to the other side. The construction crew is heading for their own vehicles to leave for the day as I begin crossing. I am sure that someone is going to say something to me about walking over the bridge in this traffic. No one does. There is barely room for the tractor-trailers and myself but then add a large framed backpack supported by two hiking sticks and there is not room to waver. When a tractor trailer rushes by I have to lean against the rusted railing. The bridge appears more a 1/4 mile long. Whatever the distance, it is a long distance walking with my torso in a half turn like a Greek statue. After the bridge, Route 3 breaks left up a long rise. I only want to sit. As I near the top of the hill the twinge alarm is undeniable from my lower back. As soon as the guardrails open and the ground suggests hope for a level tent footprint I break down for the day. I am happy to have come so far but I fear my back may not rise tomorrow. At moments like these I know the enemy is within.

25 September 2002

1800 hours. Sitting at a trucker bar to recharge, I am not so out of place. All are unshaven, wearing rough and worn clothing. Everyone has the obvious air of being from elsewhere else. In the bathroom my sock liners are soaped then rinsed clean as they are at every rest stop that offers warm water from a tap. Liners are thin white synthetic socks that are worn under heavy hiking socks to extend wear, regulate foot temperature, and reduce friction and hot spots that cause blisters. Refreshed and optimistic I see Belfast as a reasonable prospect before the sun is surrendered to the trees.

The weatherman said clear skies all night. The skies are a thick gray soup but at least it isn't raining. I am ten days into the walk. Just into Belfast on the right is a pub with an almost hidden sign Belfast Bay Brewing Co. I waddle in, quickly dropping my pack by a vending machine, and aim for the bar. Remarkably I make it on my wobbling legs. For nearly an hour I sit and nurse my Mack Point IPA, and eat hot fries with a free side of saucy meatballs that are tender, moist and everything high calorie that I wasn't going to have on the camp stove tonight. A quarter of a mile later I am standing at a perfect site on a knoll above a field complete with a dirt driveway. Tonight I call it home.

26 September 2002

At The Gothic Coffee Shop in Belfast Stephanie is wonderfully awakened as I walk in with all my gear and scruffy face announcing, "I love you." She at once starts laughing and we are quick friends. Of course I mean fully that I love her when she hands me a hot large latte, and a buttered poppy lemon muffin. With my two seconds of flirting concluded I settle back to a corner table with my back to the wall.

1145 hours. With the coming of rain, thoughts and questions sink deeper as if it allows them to soak into my soul. I begin to consider all the half-hearted things I left behind, and how so much of my life just came about with little action of my own. In truth I never decided on many things, and by not deciding I am throwing up my hands on a lot that mattered. This walk is a gesture to myself to signal that there is more to me, to life. What do I need? What do I need to give away? What do I need to become to give my best to others, while still having a little soul left for me? The employment I left behind was only a means to save for this walk. Returning to construction is something I don't want. My head and heart want something more than rip and tear under a barbarity of noise, constant orders, and speed rather than care. Before I left on this journey I visited my cousin Peter. He was happily carving slots in a beam to receive wooden pegs and matching hewn beams for a job he was working on. As I made small talk in his driveway I noticed the beauty of, and his care for his antique tools. There was also this incredible peace on his face. I told him that he looked like he loved what he was doing.
"Why would I do a job that I didn't love," asked Peter?
I smiled, knowing that in the morning I'd once again be at the job I dreaded like the dentist visit. He was right though. I'd heard lots of these charming quotes in grade school many years ago. With a slew of other half-truths I was also told that we could all be the president of the United States if we wanted to. I believed my teachers then. I still do, partly. Most of us don't have any desire to be the president of the U. S., but is inspiring to know that we can be or do anything that we want. Yet, I said nothing to Peter. I thought of my future walk as my fix. It needed to be supported on many levels, and that included not telling anyone about my dream that may not understand or support it. My dream had always been a sickly child that would only grow strong if I protested it. It proved over and over again to be stronger than I had believed. It protected me. I wasn't even sure that the bud that was on the gate of my brain would bloom, but this walk that I dreamed about had been my excuse for half-hearted employment, and relationships for so long that I no longer questioned its realism, or potential. The promise of this walk allowed me to endure anything. Even if it was still-born, the vision inside my ribs had already saved me from dry conversations, half-assed relationships, and so many jobs that did nothing to feed more than my wallet. My walk was a bird outside my prison window. This was a prison I constantly built and rebuilt myself whenever the bird figured out the bars, and had the faintest chance of landing in my hand.
Absence allows me to appreciate what matters in my life, and what doesn't, freedom, personal rights, a humble private home that is peaceful. I hunt for an identity that is not needlessly re-worked, explained, and then questioned again. Love, religious truths, and inner peace still outrun me, but I keep chasing them. Art and beauty, and an importance on living instead of making a living matter greatly to me as does saving for a future life. For too long I have only been gathering things that own as much as they are owned. I need time to love, create, and experience the rain.
I walk because I will not always be. A single white hair grows from my chest where no hair had been before. I think to pull it out but I know they will just send more. New lines are showing up on a face that, not so long ago was as taunt as fresh fruit. I walk because I am afraid not to. No longer do I believe that cutting my hair will make God smile, and I wonder if all my sorrys folded neatly on top of one another will make up for all the bruises on my heart. As I run this race called life I look around, slow to a walk, and wonder is this even the right direction.

27 September 2002

The New York Times today reads that you are poor if you make less than $9,039 a year and are single or $11,569 a year if you are married. I wonder how far, and for how long I could walk with $9,000. I also wonder if they know how to measure how rich I am.

Knowing a storm was due in today I plan for a camp of several days. I buy more food in Belfast to add to an already burdensome pack. I make camp on the best site that I can find. Of course level ground is always more desired but seldom can I shop around when it is already dark and homes are all around. Camp leans slightly downhill. Water quickly runs low. Wiping plants and the tent with a pac towel, I wring it into a pot to filter. This keeps the act of eating and being in camp close to comfortable. No matter how hard it rains an empty pan set in a clearing only gets wet. The pan never gathering any quantity of water that I can drink. My back remains an issue, so I rest by staying put and naps.
Have you noticed? This tent stinks. With everything moist, and a sweaty body that keeps getting reheated then put away damp…mushrooms would do well here.

28 September 2002

A young man pulls his car over. His appears to be fresh from the clutches of his parents, and is over eager to know what life feels like. Free life. Quickly he is out of his worn sedan carrying a huge smile, and nothing else. I see myself standing before me. Its is weeks just before I enlisted in the army. I'd forgotten that hungry look. After he asks a couple of details about what I am doing he is thrilled to shake my hand. After asking if he can grab his camera, my picture is taken with one of those send the whole camera in for developing deals. He calls me Sir - and means it. I am extremely flattered by his excitement in my walk but tell him I am at that point of uncertainty. "You have to do it," he says, like I am doing something beyond mortal power, and in the process might just save humanity. Mr. Ohio hopes into his faded blue sedan and is out of my life as quickly as he had pulled in. I forgot that my skin was once so smooth.

Thinking about bears I hope for no company tonight. The season draws late and a hard frost is due in. I hope the blueberries have been good here so I can save my pink skin. This is the best site I've had since the first day when I hid away at Acadia. Even now this covert tenting eats at the nerves. There is always the fear that my trespass will be caught. And there is always my mind, the cruel creature inside my head that converts the discussions of the geese, now coming on water for the night, into people talking about my tent or the hiker they saw leave the road just before sunset. Then there are the cruel truths. All of the people you secretly thought you'd impress--your lover, friends, brother and his buddies at the gym that lift cars for exercise--it all goes to steam. No one is really counting these miles, pounds. Almost and what ifs never enter their minds. The dog that just barely missed biting my leg today is of no consequence. Tomorrow there will be another dog just as intent on becoming a target for my swinging stick.
A kind man gave me water last week. As he filled my bag he asked if I did this to repent. I said no I didn't think so. My answer was wrong. What I don't yet feel, I need to feel. What allows me to sleep I need to awaken. Unbelievably my life has not ended, but have I celebrated? Have I quieted the constant roar in my days to weight what matters? No. Once I was a hunter. Everything from love to food to security I stalked and slaughtered for not naturally being there for me. Then I became a gatherer. I couldn't save enough. Repent? Heal is a better word. Before I can stop my life from running off the road, the steering must be repaired. I walk because my heart is going too fast. The world that propels me is going too fast. At 39 I can already hear my last words, and I'm not impressed. There is a woman that adores me even as I crumble about. I would like to be what she sees.

Early camp. The earliest camp so far. Tomorrow I plan to burn a lot of miles so today I charge my soul in the beauty that is all around me. Twenty feet away the sound of water cupping against large worn stones gives birth to the sound that is in my ears, and it circles me like a heartbeat. On a heavy bed of white pine needles I breathe easy on my back, watching the antlers of fallen branches hanging white as bone in the trees.
Calling home on the cell phone, I find out everyone is off to pick apples. I remember the year before. Apples are everywhere, and they hold flavors as varied as wine. A lazy man could fill a basket in a minute. Ironically it is the fevered heart that takes two hours to fill the same basket. That is the art. If music is the space between the notes, life is the pause between the breathing. I sit looking at the water thinking of hard ripe fruit until the air is noticeably cold.
A red squirrel barks his disapproval of me for moving a mushroom he started eating. A cold wind coming across the water picks up. I would love a wood fire but it is still unsafe. At night I become a ghost.

1855 hours. Dinner is couscous, jerky and pancakes. I eat smiling. Clean up is fast. The front of the teepee faces the water. There is always the dull fear of being ousted from this campsite just as the sun fans the horizon with color. From the less than simple inconvenience of having to move camp in the dark, there is also the worry over what I'd lose in relocating in the dark under the eyes, and possible gun, of an overly concerned land holder. Already I've been forced to walk the tar roads in the dark as headlights blew by, but not by the orders of someone asking me to move on. Even with reflectors and a headlamp it is unsettling. Always, the later it gets the braver or bolder my choices become for a place to sleep for the night.

29 September 2002

My dreams have become like movies in their length, meaning, plot and clarity. Also my memory over the most trivial thing has rejuvenated. It is as if one of my senses was removed and it has been replaced with another. Books, the frequent company of friends, and television have been replaced by dreams.
1310 hours. The town of Liberty, and I'm at Penny's General Store which is a two pump gas station, out house and a modest selection of store products. The prices are the best I've seen so far in these little stores. I'm even able to buy a single bottle of local beer to go with a sandwich made of turkey, onion, black olives and pickle on a fresh roll. Arms loaded with lunch I head outside. Fantastic! The trail really wakens the taste buds, and makes the heart happy to give thanks.
2000 hours. Another weekend curls up its legs and passes on. Only a dozen miles have passed under my feet today but the constant hills take a heavy toll on my body.
Yesterday I made a vow to increase my fluids and rest more often. I'll break it by tomorrow. Early in the day I am already moving through my supply of water at a quick rate. Always it is hard for me to ask for help but I try to be overly humble. I do not know how to be more polite, and find that I smile more to disarm than I do because it is the position my face wants to be in. A young shirtless man is taking out his trash at his home across the street. His home and car are well worn but functional. Crossing the road I approached his door and gently knock. I leave my pack on is so I present no threat being limited by my heavy load. Immediately a large pitbull thrusts its nose through a hole in the screen barking and nashing it powerful jaws together. It assures me it would love to tear into my flesh. No yelling comes from the house. Not a loud or harsh word is spoken. The young woman of the house harnesses the dog, saying one or two quiet words. The dogs ceases its fury instantly as if unplugged and follows her into another room. The young man I'd just seen take out the trash approaches the door, and invites me in. I am rarely asked in. I step just inside the door. With a smile the young husband of the house takes my water bottle, opens the fridge and fills it with ice-cold Poland Spring's water. I tell the couple that they are spoiling me as my mouth yearns for the ice water in the jug. In the woman's arms is a one-month old boy. My heart is moved for this family. As I step down from the house I say, as I'd read in the scriptures, "Peace be with this house." With all my heart I wish that there was something that I could give back to this warm family.

30 September 2002

0630 hours. The crows have just found my camp. Not unlike the greeting of a loving dog, I love the excited barks and caws that demand notice. I say hello to the black birds aiming my thoughts toward another hour of sleep. Crows are one voice that comes from home like a letter. No matter where I am I stop and try to read it. Sometimes it just says, "Hello, you're not alone." Other times it speaks of love, secrets, giving thanks, and questions if I need all the food I'm eating.

China, Maine. 1800 hours. The personality of strangers has warmed considerably. Everyone says hello. Soft smiles replace accusing faces. The smiles are almost jealous. At a small Citgo I eat pizza and buy supplies. I try a local beer, mostly because I don't need all the sugar in soda, and I still feel silly buying water even after all my years of hiking in dry lands. My cell phone drinks a trickle from an outside outlet. Soon I'll be on roads I have never traveled over.

1 October 2002

Camp is down and packed. Again the crows came to wake me. Today I listened to their warnings. Gunfire began coming from all directions. They're hunting bird, I think. I must get to the road quickly.
The long vein of I-95 that delivered me several weeks ago to Cadillac Mountain is now behind me, along with Augusta. The thing about Augusta is that you are in Augusta long before you are in Augusta. After I passed the city limit sign my thoughts were, 'Oh no, here it comes.' Well, ten miles later of walking (in the mid 80s over hills that were designed to exercise the demons of the soul) the road became a busy strip. The strip of used car lots and gas stations stayed with me until a couple of traffic circles tested my sign reading ability. The miles were exhausting to say the least. It was very much a river run that once started could not be stopped until all of Augusta was tar beneath my feet. Twenty-one miles with 65 lbs. over horrible hills in the mid 80s wear heavy on my frame. This was not a light day. Today was work.

1810 hours. End of the day. Camp is fresh again. Shadows take over the forest. Throughout the woods are fired 12 gauge shotgun cases. I surround my camp with houses to help prevent a skylight from being added to my tent….or me.
I bought my first raw red meat, but the homes are too close to cook without being noticed. Bears? With my hawk I sharpen a spear, tie up the meat, and pray for dawn.
There is absolutely no difference between this and my years with the 82nd Airborne Div. Yes, I miss my rifle but hopefully a need for it never surfaces. I was diligent in purchasing only mute toned gear for this walk. Everything on the market today that is made for outdoor use loves to shine in some insane shouting color. The store employees always try to say that the colors are for safety, or that they are what people want. I have never met these people that want hot pink $500 Gortex parkas in XXL but I suppose they exist. I shrug and search the catalogs for greens and browns like I'm looking for Waldo. Tonight I am glad for the extra effort.
My legs issue complaints. I passed a post office today, but I did not have the heart to part with anything from my pack. This feeling will quickly change.

2 October 2002

I stopped around 5pm at Little Dan's BBQ. I smell it for half a mile down the road, and had, to find the source and then find my wallet. Dropping my gear, I hope the place isn't doing a special closed function. I walk past the empty picnic tables to the log cabin built on a four wheel flat bed trailer. Not stopping wasn't an option. I ask one of the sons what most people ordered. He recommends pulled pork on a roll. The hot BBQ sauce is added to the butter tender pork that overflowed the roll. I swallow a lot of saliva staring at the delicacy all the way to the wooden bench. I give thanks, but it is a fuzzy blur of words in a rush for the Amen. Bringing the filled roll up to my mouth I am high on the smoky moist waves that enter my nose. I bite, but chewing is only a formality. I hate that I have nobody to rave over the flavor with. The meat is everything smoked meat should be but rarely is-nothing superficial. Every molecule is smoked. I swig my ice tea and try to slow my chewing. Several miles later I am mad that I didn't think to pack some of the mind altering meat with me - it is that good! Dan, the owner and originator of Dan's BBQ goes from small talk to giving me a full tour of his dream that is in the process of becoming reality. Dan's restaurant is under construction just behind the cabin on the flatbed. Inside the building is a kitchen quickly taking shape as a BBQ house. Dan's fatherly pride sparkles over his venture. Dan is ten years my senior but for whatever reason we have ended up on the same page at the same time, living our dreams. Dan's parents used to run a restaurant and for years this has been the very thing he's wanted to do. We shake hands several times, and then I too soon I am walking toward my goal. It feels good knowing that after our talk Dan's assembling a stainless steel table, or by now he is working on some other feature late into the night that will help deliver up his dream.

Over half of Maine is done. Even though the miles sometimes fall past too slowly the people
sparkle. At a remote store with a humble room of odd tables and chairs an elderly man waves me down. Once I drop my pack and step inside the old man dressed in vintage farm clothes orders me to join him with a smile and heavy Maine accent. In a couple of minutes I have warm food, and several old men have joined our table. I am child in a room full of men. They are all interested, and curious. Suggestions are given as to what fears I should keep, and what bull I should put out to pasture. My food gets cold as I keep answering questions while they nod to each other, enjoying Fred's entertaining find. Out of all the names I only hold onto Fred's. Fred was the gentleman that waved me to his table, and I recognize him in the memories of many faces that I have loved and lost long ago. As I walk out onto the sand that had blown over the tar parking lot. I am less afraid of bears, but more alone. I am a bit sad to be leaving my new friend. As I look back, Fred stands alone on the stores front deck watching me leave. There is an uneasy ache in turning away from a face I know I'll never see again.

Winthrop, Maine. 1325 hours. By a small marsh I collect enough large snails for my lunch. While the water considers when to boil I wash up and think about this interesting lunch, and how to make it hotter. The snails mark another first. The boil the quarter size shells for five minutes. Draining the water my knife begins the task of recovering the creatures from their shells. A loon sings nearby. With spicy noodles that look a bit too much like thin worms, I brave my interesting lunch. Some of the snails don't surprise me but rather taste…like snails. The smaller snails taste like great white meat. After eating them all I find I like my twig tea the most.

3 October 2002

A visitor is in camp. It is nearly midnight. I roll while sleeping and an instantly a recognizable scent boils into my head. SKUNK. The animal has only released enough smell to announce itself. It stamps its feet in anger, sniffs, and again all is silent. Complaining softly I go back to sleep. As soon as my breathing is relaxed and I feel myself slip into a mild snore another slap comes across my face. There is nothing that I can do. If I opened the tent door I'll get sprayed. If I yell my tent will get hit full force. For the next hour while the nosey bandit explored my camp I receive a scent complaint each time I fall asleep. Happily, heavy rain begins sending my visitor off into the forest. Finally I am able to fall asleep.

From twenty feet away I can smell my tent

A groups of crows come to my smelly tent. I'm amazed at this feat. Nearly every morning crows come to my front door waking me at 0620. This is not an easy task considering I have a round base tent with only a zipper identifying the front of the shelter. Another blessing that is a constant is all of the great gifts the road offers up. If I want it or need something it is guaranteed that I will find it within two days, usually one, on the side of the road. These are little things, certainly, but just as the birds do not worry where their food will come from……..

4 October 2002

When denied childhood we spend the rest of our life looking for it. Yes more success or fortune would insulate me from the chill of hard times but really experiencing life-not through books or television alone-is essentially me. Television really has done great things for this world of over six billion. I think of how crowded all the parks, galleries, forests, lakes, streets and land as a whole would be if the globe shut off its television as a whole, and everyone ran outside. Everyone would be at the mercy and manners of those around them, intimately knowing this earth, its sunrises and these leaves ripe with color. Guess I'd have to bug out, and try my best to find a good thick book.

0900 hours. The rain has stopped, and I've found the remains of a moose. It was a victim of a car. Its remains are now little more than fur and bones, and a large patch of greasy leaves that circle out from the dead animal. The huge frame amazes me. Lifting the bones to get a understanding of the animal tells me nothing. A hollow feeling grows under my layers of clothes. Putting a hoof in my pocket to make into a rattle later, I whisper thank you and walk away.

It is strange how the mind works. My brother Steve has been dead for nearly twenty years. When I think of returning home I see him there, as if my returning home will return all the people that I have ever lost. I am excited even after I explain the truth to myself. I think it's the moose.

1930 hours. White sage burns in my small teepee tent. I inhale the clean calm. My breathing is smooth as if the air has been combed. Tonight is the first heavy frost. The color today was unearthly. Maple, birch, oaks and the blonde hair of the white pine all ruffled in their colorful intensity. My memory is repairing itself. Names, faces and events from long ago become vivid.

5 October 2002

As I passed one front porch in a series of homes that blinked behind a thin line of trees a voice called out to me, "Where you headed?" "On a long hike," is my response, figuring that I would give the 25-year-old brunette a smile and take my leave. "Well, why don't ya come up here and tell me about it."
"Yeah, come on up, and take a load off," laughs another woman from an open window near the concrete front steps. I conceal how thrilled I am. This is the first formal invitation by anyone asking me into their home for more than a glass of water in the doorway. It is always too long between conversations with people, let alone a young blond, and a brunette asking me into their home. Naomi, Shawna and I move beyond introductions to discuss details of the walk, bluegrass fairs that we can drive to and see, parties they've been to, and the day's laundry. Most of the day we spend together, until slowly the newness wears off. Soon enough, we are all ready for our separate lives already again. The company is nice though, and I know that I will miss them a mile down the road. Still, my feet get anxious like dogs. I would be happy just to sit here and listen to them talk, but I know that I must trade words, and I am out of practice. They share their home, and wash my clothes. I share my stories, and a large hero sandwich I had just bought in town. I lend them my cell phone while I take a refreshing shower. The exchange is great.

When I am a few miles away Naomi and Shawna, come storming down the road honking like a parade on speed. Shawna, the blonde woman, is hanging half out of the sedan window shouting my name, and other things that flutter down the road behind their car with the leaves. They do this several times throughout the early evening. I never do talk with them again. I shake my head with amusement each time they pass on their way to some small adventure of they're creation. Part of me is disappointed that they never stop. I want to thank them for our visit again, and their enthusiasm that eases the load I carry. I appreciate that the anticipation of seeing them explode around each corner in their rattling blue sedan eases the weight on my legs until the sun gets weak, and the day is done. I wonder how many faces will become my friends before this walk is over. Already I have met so many.

6 October 2002

Camp Kokatusi. Todd Southwick, part of the family that owns the campground, oversees the camp. Looking at him I notice that he's a few years younger than I am. As I rebuke myself for not being carved into society like Todd I see the faint gleam in Todd's eyes grow as I answer the questions asked by the people who have gathered outside the camp store. We are related. As I ask about Todd's world I think what if, and can tell that he is doing the same. Most people are afraid to live the life I have adopted. I am equally afraid to live a conventional life. Todd offers the use of a camp shower, but I just showered yesterday and don't want to shock my system after these weeks without. As I feed my phone a charge in the game room, I watch the campers leave. I miss traveling in my old Airstreams, and the strong sense of community that comes with seasonal trailer-parks.

0200 A scream, louder than any real scream I've ever heard, tears me from my sleep. It lasts about ten seconds and sounds like a cross between a cat and a woman. The cry ices my nerves so completely that I know sleep will not return to me tonight. It is an hour later. A sleep drunk squirrel fell from a tree limb above my tent, landing right above my head. I freak, and start punching. The petrified animal claws, and cries down the side of my shelter until it hit the ground, and then I hit it. Still scared by the airborne visit I punched the side of the tent, sending the little traveler on another flight. I hear him barking madly into the black of the forest until my pulse calms and I try to steal more sleep.

The travel cards have been a wise investment of time and materials. Whenever I give one out eyes light up, and my walk becomes real to them. We live in a paper driven society. No matter how silly it seems we tend to accept paper as truth. I rely on this fact, especially in the minds of those that don't trust strange faces.
Except for another vicious dog intent on a stand off, the day is beautiful. The sky is that too blue that looks plastic above the green and slightly tinted trees that are still unconvinced its really time to roll in the chlorophyll. It's not just the trees. Most nights the sleeping bag is optional. Shorts and one shirt are still all the day requires. This will change very soon.
The day is falling too fast. A nice man trying to give good direction sends me 7-10 miles out of my way. Ouch! Having done 19 miles already, my body is fatigued as I enter a business strip. My mind is made up. Breaking my own taboo about staying in a city I venture down the hill into the brush. Obviously homeless people had been here, and people seeking a hide to drink have found these trees before me. Small flat cleared sites dot throughout the woods as if they are deer beds in an apple grove, only there are apples. There are only patches of trash from careless vagrants, and flattened circles of plants.
As the sun fully sets some of my fear about discovery has leaves. Rain and cold are due after midnight. I'll be in trouble if I have to strike camp. Unless there's been a recent problem, the police won't search this area hard, and it is far too cold for someone to make a slip shod camp and get drunk. Still I am back in the army. Branches and grasses are checked for fresh breaks. Carefully I crawl around bushes, checking used trails for fresh tracks. The leaves on top of the black path are sealed to the earth frozen by earlier rain, and uncrushed. No broken plants. The plastic, and the labels on the trash are faded. The area is secure. As usual I pick the most distant heavily covered site. Human predators are always a consideration. No hot food tonight. Light disciple is stressed in my mind more than usual. I barely use my headlamp even on its lowest setting. Only earth tones are worn outside the tent. I pray for rain. Rain covers a multitude of sins.

7 October 2002

Brighton, As I walk through a delightful Victorian section that is totally unexpected. A man in his late 40s or 50s begins to talk to me as he walks his Jack Russell Terrier, and another small spotted dog of similar breed. We begin to converse with simple ease that usually only comes after knowing someone for a long time. Even as I begin to walk away, we compare lives in our conversation, reasons we are here on this stage in our lives, travels done or yet to do, and the beauty of the unexpected things life constantly offers up. He gives his name but it slips my mind as I juggle all the things that we were talking about. I tried to understand the instant feeling of comfort I have with this man. We shake hands like relatives that will meet again. Fortunately he has my card. Maybe our futures will reconnect.

8 October 2002

Naples, although as attractive as any clean town is adjacent to well maintained lakes, came and was gone in little more than one sweep of the road. I had expected Bridgton to be a farmer haunt badly in need of new boards, paint and a lot of financial blood in its veins. Clearly I was wrong. No one mentioned this town to me before I arrived, or its romantic look. The town survives an era when every layer of a house was decorated like a wedding cake, and every storefront is worthy of special attention. I slept in the hills above Brigton, and I surprise myself by returning today to visit the village with its shops open. It is very rare for me to backtrack to see anything.

9 October 2002

There is too much to write about, and describe. All around me is an impressionistic painting that moves in slow frames of light. From where I sit on a bench, rocks squat in front of me in the shallow shore. I can see Mt. Washington and its dusting of snow arch its back at the sky across the water, and also in a perfect reflection. Water for hot chocolate begins to boil. Pancake batter waits for the stove, promising gold brown circles of bread that already have my mouth watering . Hot cocoa is poured. I sip and watch the loons while the frying pan heats up. They are so close that the speckling of their feathers is clear. Their song comes to me. I pour batter on the hot metal and a familiar hiss sooths the pan. I unwrap my plains flute and begin to play for the loons. The notes move easy over the water even though my fingers feel stiff. Contrary to the breeze the water remains glass. Logs well below the surface are seen in perfect detail.

Just outside Brighton, Maine

The Little Mountain Store seduces you in with its large wooden rocking chairs on its front porch. I had to stop. Becky, whose family owns the store, introduces herself and asked the usual question. "How far are you going?"
As soon as Becky hears about what I am doing she can't do enough for me. We talk as I eat a double cheeseburger with all the fresh garden extras that will stay between the buns, and I down two large cups of hot coffee. We share stories, take pictures, and I relive adventures until I am sure Becky is going to pull a backpack out of the closet, leave work, and join me. Looking outside I see that evening finds me shamming instead of walking.
Becky tells me about her grandmother's camp located up a couple roads from the store, and through the woods. Her boyfriend Tyson is up there fishing at the pond. Becky gives me directions, and then gives them again because I didn't really listen the first time. I decide that a night of peace beside a campfire without the fear of people rousting me is just what I need.
Becky lovingly fixes up a care package for my first campfire of the walk and I rush into the night taking too little time to thank my new friend for all of her generosity. It is already late.
Becky was right. There is no one. I have already been walking for more than an hour in the pitch black. I am thankful when I see the only car that moves on this dirt road tonight. Tyson slows and comes to a stop as I wave my arms. Turning my headlamp down, and out of Tyson's eyes we make introductions, and talk for a few minutes. He is bright , and full of freshness like a coat that has been stored on a cold porch. I can smell the outdoors on him, and hope I smell the same. A large nine or ten pound bass flops complaints in the backseat of the old car keeping the conversation short. Tyson pulls out his catch proudly for me to examine. It is the largest fresh water fish that I had ever seen outside of a hatchery. Tyson assures me, (the fish assures me) that eventually I will wander into the camp if I keep following the road for a couple more miles, and then break to the left.
Tyson tells me to keep looking in the woods for the lamp he always leaves on that marks the cabin in the dark. Finally, and a lot farther down the road than I had believed, I see a light through the trees moving in time to my feet the way the moon does. The spotlight left on at the cabin turns me into a moth. Finally seeing the light there was nowhere else that I want to be. I can't remember ever being this deep in a strange land at night without a fair mental picture of what was around me. I was wrong about where I thought I wanted to be. I want houses. I want the sound of distant cars and dog songs. No matter where I had been I felt a link as long as somewhere through the trees the tar could be found. That ribbon of tar linked me to some distant society that still expands and contracts in my mind. I know tonight that the tar is a couple of hours of hiking away. Except for my fire and one spot-light that reached for the water I am alone. I make the fire as tall as I am so that I can talk to it. I talk, and watch the trees around me. I listen to the forest breathe, and move.
0100 hours. Feeding the large fire wears me down. Through the trees a couple of young bears threaten an empty cabin. They want something that is easy to eat. They are as loud as two fifteen year olds with a twelve pack of beer and a pool table. I wonder what that cabin will look like by morning. I wonder what I'll look like. With my heart in my throat I put all my food in a bag and climb onto the cabin roof to secure it. My mind asks me about squirrels eating my food. Without words I remind myself that squirrels sleep until dawn, and squirrels are not why I'm climbing on a cabin roof in the middle of the night. I turn the spotlight that guided me to this cabin onto my tent. In front of my tent a large moose decides its time to take a bath, and does so with great abandonment. For an hour it flops, eats and splashes some more. I walk to the water but my headlamp is so weak it is silly. The moose has no fear of me nor does it bother moving away. Trying to watch with my eyes bulging in the dim light makes me tired. I wander back to my tent that looks like it is on display. With my pipe tomahawk in my hand I finally fall asleep as the bears continue to party.
0530
Outside my tent in the cold morning air everything is brilliantly replaced. I take pictures and wonder why my heart spent the night in my throat. Kezar Pond left me more tired than rested.

Fryburg

Walking through the center of Fryburg I meet a man that says he's seen me hiking earlier but his son and he thought I was from Australia because I was hiking in the middle of nowhere, and winter almost here. "No one from America would be caught out on a journey this late in northern New England," he remarked. I shrugged weakly.
After the basics are rattled off, I ask about his hat crest. After I am told that he is a retired pilot I mention my history serving with the 82nd as a paratrooper. He tells me that he flew the same planes in Vietnam that I jumped out of. Soon we are both running at the mouth excitedly. A picture or two is taken before my hands are loaded with five pounds of small red tomatoes. We shake hands for the last time, and I give him one of my walk cards. Sadly the evening is already here. The smell of wood smoke comes out from the houses as I leave another town that makes me think of home, and a winter that has promises to keep.

Yards away from the state line I settled into a thin forest beside the road. Tomorrow I'll get my first state line crossing on film. Prompted by last nights camp, I think the moose will fish with the bears in my dreams tonight.

10 October 2002

1600hrs. I start the day with a picture at the state line. One state is behind me. I am giddy and light. On the side of the road I find a perfect apple. Polishing it on my shirt I can feel my mouth prepare for the sweet taste. I bite the hard apple and it is heavenly.
It is 50 degrees. The miles pass easily. Another treasure. A pair of heavy long blue fleece ski glove liners with leather palms lay on the bank to my left. This is a very great day.
At the Mt. Washington ranger station I wash my find in the rest room with hot soapy water. I can't get over how blessed I am.

.
A car drives by with the window partly down . The rich heady smell of a woman's perfume tumbles out to me. I am so drunk that my two hiking sticks fail to hold me up straight with confidence. It is the lightest smell, and I am suddenly eight years old again, accidentally running into a twenty something teachers-aide, drowning against her chest for the seconds it takes for me to regain my legs…then I am in my twenties in a train station in Paris about to miss the last train out before a railway strike begins. A stunning woman grabs my hand because I can't understand her French. We are running, running with my mind swirling behind her exactly like my legs. I am on the train and the door is closing. As I turn to memorize her face with eyes too weak to hold her, she is gone and the rail strike I barely avoided is no longer what matters. I would sell anything to stop the train.
Ireland waits north of me, but I want only to be back in that train station feeling that beautiful woman holding my hand as we run toward a place I hope we never reach. The train moves on. The train door has slid shut. All around me is all the noise in the world, yet silence. All day, as I walk my mind takes side trips that punch at my heart.
As I near the top of a winding hill, I consider how brilliant it is to be able to love. Even if you are lost it may find you, and again you have some hope that everything in the world can fit in your hand. It remains forever ageless and weighty with promise. I have been alone too long, and my words begin to make since to me.

1930hrs.

Another day resigns. The sun never did bother showing itself so darkness comes more like a slow deepening of gray. I tie the food up in a white birch. I wonder whether it matters. All of this climbing and tying is for nothing if Mr. Bear likes the smell of my mountain soap or foot powder.
Animals converse with me more than people do. Crows, horses, and a few goats all listened intently as I talk while walking by. They appear to nod but I think they are just humoring me. The one thing that I can not avoid is thinking. My mind is a swirl of activity that at times is too rampant and busy. I tell my thoughts to be calm. They don't listen. Conversations that took place years ago are just now being rehashed. There is a new improved list of things that I wish I had said. I failed to think of at the time. I re-attend parties with women whose names I no longer know. I send my energy to the area of the brain where names are kept. Hours go by before my thoughts come back to me with empty hands, and my thoughts shrug their shoulders.
On Rt 25 I pass a rifle range on the side of the road. The firing range is not far off into the woods as I find to be the norm back in my birth state, but rather right next to the road. Wild! New Hampshire doesn't make me miss Mass. or its state government. It is refreshing to see some freedom still alive in America.

11 October 2002
1800hrs
Sidewalks are rare and relaxing. Until the sidewalk runs out I can walk at ease without watching every car that drives by. Walking is one of the mediums that lets me be myself. I love that when the day is over I don't feel that I under sold it. It is easy to sell your day to someone else when it is raining or gray. I haven't come up with a price that's fair in exchange for days when the leaves are so alive with color that you can smell it. When I am old it won't matter how rich I am. No matter how much I can offer to pay to have these perfect days back I won't be able to replace an hour. I will not be thirty-nine again. I am lucky to be this old and crazy enough to really live. I've seen enough friends leave life with their song still in them. I walk because something is wrong that years are not curing. I have miss the living of my life, not making a living. I awoke too many times during the night thinking out loud that this was not what I want to be. Now I awaken worrying that I will never want to stop.
My brother Steve is dead. My step-brother Jimmy, step-brother Stevie, step-sister Jodie, and my cousin all also died far too young at their own hand to one extent or another. Even after years their deaths still disturb me. In degrees we were all lost. I am still, but I have hope in a compass, if I learn to listen, and follow it.

My body adapts well to the falling temperatures. When I stop for the night all my energy is spent, and yet I set up the tent, filter water if a source is nearby, write, make dinner, and talk long to the sky with rarely a loss for words. I do try to do all that camp demands before my blood thickens, leaving me dumb. As the last of my walking steam lifts and separates from me, staying warm often requires my down sleeping bag, and hot food.

With five to eight thousand black bears in New Hampshire combined with this being their "Eat all you can" season I again tie the food bag in the trees.

Equipment is always being cleaned, repaired, unbent, sewn or tinkered with in some fashion. It is part of the trip. It is ironically a very enjoyable part. There is a great feeling that comes with caring for the things that care for you. When I first went into the army in the early eighties I hated cleaning my M-16. We cleaned our rifles a lot. As soon as we flawlessly cleaned and oiled our weapons we'd run to do field exercises with them, or spend a day at the firing range. With a great deal of time spent doing something I hated I decided to find peace in the task instead of dread. I learned to enjoy the meditative pleasure doing a good job on my machine gun. For hours I was free to think of my girl back home, my grandmother, friends I lost, and the joy of just being alive. To this day I still enjoy breaking down a firearm and spending hours cleaning it while I wander in my mind. I am my grandfather, and his grandfather before him.

Tomorrow Alexcia will meet me in Laconia. A month has gone by. It will be so good to have her companionship. In my sleep I dream of food but when I wake my ribs are still hard against my skin like a greyhound. Soon I'll be seriously chowing.

14 October 2002

1930hrs. Quick camp. Where Alexcia found me beside the road two days ago she has returned me. I walk a half-mile in the dark after Alexcia's tail lights blinked good-bye, and then I walk into the trees. A horse across the road complains in a long whinny that is unnerving. He is afraid. So am I.
I remember holding hands, small talk about where I had walked, ate, and slept. Now I am alone again with the sound of trees yawning over me, and I am more hollow than I had been in weeks. The pot roast Alexcia cooked and brought, the smoked salmon, garlic cream cheese mashed potatoes, three bottles of great merlot, beer, salsa and blue corn chips all melt away in me leaving me missing my devoted friend. Now on the bed of a dark forest floor all my equipment that was clean, just weighed and sorted looks lifeless as a stone. The trees become the cobblestone bridge. I am at Acadia all over again. Everything feels like I am again at the beginning. I busy my hands making camp, but it is like making dinner when your stomach is sour.
The autumn gear is in the Jeep heading south. I look at my new pack but can't remember where anything is stowed. I miss my green old house on my back, and knowing where everything is stowed. Slowly the tent goes up. It is again the first night. The feast is gone. I chew cold left over roast that is sweet but my cheeks sweat in the way that only comes from missing someone dear. Morning is a galaxy away. Alexcia returns home with all the pictures that she brought from the beginning of my walk. I asked for none. I feel foolish and sad.

15 October 2002

0830hrs.28 degrees. Frost is heavy as if it's snowed. In my tent I hear the sound of falling sleet, but looking outside I see that it is the constant falling of frozen leaves. It is amazing. Yesterday Leaf Peepers were driving all around these mountains to see the generous variety of color. With the show over the curtains fall. It will be a solemn road to walk when all the leaves are down.

Moultonborough, NH

John Oliver greeted me when I stopped for coffee at a small market. I gave my card, and soon my stories were being shared to several new faces. While eating the leftovers from Alexcia's visit I watched John go about his care-taking job next door. Soon we were talking again. John told me about his son that traveled the way I do. I talked about where I'd been and where I was going. A lot of people asked questions. John really listened. He had lived his life in the area, and talked about his town in a proud and loving way that made you glad he was there to share it with you. We shook hands several times the way people do when they finally met someone they never expected to meet but hoped that they would.
John introduced me to Lisa Holland. After a few minutes of talking we figured out that we both used to work for the same man, Steven Fellerman of Glassworks in Sheffield Ma. We laughed at the odds.
Miles later I am down the road far from the Moultonborough Store. Last night my lips decided to crack open in the cold. By morning I had a weathered sore. As the wind brushed my face my lip throbbed like a bad tooth. As I walk past a parked dark sedan feeling a bit worn, a friendly face speaks out to me. A warm hand comes out from the car and tucks a folded twenty in my hand. Puzzled I ask why. Shirley told me that she had talked to her husband John. This was the same John that I had talked to only miles ago. They decided that they wanted to give me something toward my journey. I consider refusing but smiled in disbelief instead. I have grown used to counting every penny I spend so that I can walk as long as possible before my savings goes belly up. John and Shirley gave me more days to live my dream before I am forced to stop. I also think of their son and know that they hope someone is as kind to him. I know people will be. There are some gifts that give to the receiver, and the some bless both parties. I thank Shirley profusely. I promise I'll spend it on something special. She adds that she wishes Jesus to watch over me. This is my first brush with any church in weeks and it feels smooth in my ears.

1830hrs. In my tent I consider the hand written signs on Rt 25B.THREE HUNDRED PLUS POUND BLACK BEAR WITH TWO CUBS SEEN HERE October 2002. I cook dinner behind an antique graveyard set in the woods, always watching the trees. I hang the food sac over a large gravestone from the limb of an old oak. I feel like Huck Finn in the cemetery with a dead cat after dark as I try to hang my food bag. Again I sleep with my tomahawk at the ready. I am ten feet from the graveyard.
As sleep edges its way through the woods to me I think about what John Oliver had said when I told him that I wasn't sure I was on the right course. John's mouth became a line in stone. "You are definitely on the right road!" His face softened as he felt his point was made. I wanted to believe John as I lay in the dark beside this old graveyard, but I could hear my heart differ, and question.

Wasn't it Dr. Wayne Dyer that said that it isn't turning forty that causes the distress, it is the knowing that you will never see or do so many things in this life that before now were open to you? What helps me put these boots on week after week, month after month is this knowledge. I have always been good at leaving and remembering. There is often the dull pang as I release another handshake or fall from another embrace good-bye, but I think of the faces that are still stranger to me, and I am hungry again. Twenty years ago exactly I graduated high school. They were right. Without even a square of rubber at the end of a stick to slow the speed of one day the years have raced past.
I have sampled many lives. It is usually easy to leave or disregard what is obviously a bad fit. The real thief of lives is the grooves that we wear into the earth unsure. How often I have paced away precious time hoping things would get better. I can convince myself of most anything, except that the man in the mirror is getting younger. There has always been something desperate behind my eyes, a wanting of less, and more. In the trailer that I lived in as a child I slept above my brother Steve in a homemade bunk bed. My constant site of home detention was that pine bunk. As I lay there through far too much of my childhood, I stared at a map of the United States tacked just above my head. A longing to explore this country was born in that bed. A longing that predated any other want of my flesh sat up in me , and refused to ever lie down again.. Already, I had wasted too much of my life in bed while all the other kids I knew ran in and out of the days of their childhood. At seven I yearned to be where I was wanted, and alive. Freedom, love, and adventure. I lusted for these staples before I could write.
Dishwasher, cook, soldier, paratrooper, tractor trailer driver, medic, college student, lab tech, artist, mental health worker, traveler, cameo glass carver, construction worker, and so many other jobs that brought me here all surrendered to my need to keep searching for something that filled an inner void. After four years of staying anywhere my feet itch. Whatever I do grows weak, thin, and unreal and as binding as death. I don't want to spend my days like they are replaceable and a limitless resourse to earn something of limited value.. I know that the world has more than enough people running about in an awful hurry to make things better…and most are failing. I want to live my life showing that I know that I am here for too short a time. I don't want to waste what is unreplaceable. Of course I have wasted days, even years, but some film always falls on the cutting room floor.
It is a blessing to live to be thirty-nine. Of course I'd love to live forever, but if I can't spend forty years truly living and loving the life that I have been gifted with then how could I pray for more. Can't progress for once mean going back to a better way of living rather than always rushing forward?

My last employer told me that I could not talk and work at the same time. "Give one up," he said. Sometimes it is easy to walk.
I put my head down on my pad while in the woods resting. Suddenly I hear a distant sound of drumming. The sound moves closer, becoming louder. I think about how prehistoric creatures must have really shook the earth when they walked, as my mind wanders off half asleep. The drumming becomes louder still. As I open my eyes and look up the legs of an adult moose are running directly at my head. In my sleeping bag there is little that I can do. I tighten my frame as I try to tuck and roll. I barely move. Just as the gigantic legs are about to pummel me into red juice in a down sleeping bag, they turn right while continuing running down through the woods. I think about many things knowing I had almost swallowed my last breath. I am too tired, or too unconcerned with 'what ifs'. In seconds my heart is calm and I am sleeping.

16 October 2002

1430hrs. Again it rains. I am in a shower with my clothes on and no soap.

Burger King. Hot food. My cell phone drinks a trickle silently beside me, as I unwrap burgers like presents. The rain falls harder. I sigh contentedly as my clothes and pack make puddles on the floor that connect under my table. Sometimes a warm burger with fries is just what the inner stove needs to thaw the whole house. I think I am eating with my eyes closed.
Rt. 93 is a block away. Under a falling down shed/barn I find a dry seat. As the rain continues I finger through a wet box of books. The bottom paperbacks are soaked fat. All of the titles are from the eighties or older. An old book of poems is dry. I read for a couple hours until my eyes are too dry. Sleep flirts at me but the rain is too loud on the rotting shack roof. I cut a pair of Nike' rain-pants I found into hand covers for my walking poles. My hat is a pound heavier from the rain it has swallowed. Amazingly my feet are still dry.
As the rain continues I walk just under thirty miles. Although my pack has on its rain-cover some water makes its way into my load adding more weight onto my inner scale. Exhausted I finally can go no further. Refilling all of my water containers at a roadside spring, I spot a hollow across the road down in the trees. I hike into the dark wooded flat. It is only now that the smell of rot crawls into my nose. Just on the other side of a weak stand of trees is an active landfill. Too tired to hike through the town that is just up the road, I have no choice. I place a plastic sheet on the soaked ground, and lift the teepee fly over the it. The smell is making my stomach churn. I tried not to taste the air but soon it is in my mouth like sickness. In this rain I have no choice. The cover is staked. All of my gear is shoved inside. I trying to keep everything as clean and dry as possible but it is hopeless. I cell phone my brother and Alexcia to mentally escape from where I am. It doesn't work.
Not many hours go by before I am weakly asleep while the wind argues with the trees above my tent. I am instantly awake, and thrown back into this revolting stench. A hunting rat has walked under the side of my tent, and has climbed up onto my foot. I kick the drenched rat into the air as I spring upright. It is still raining. Morning is too far away. The wind is insanely harsh making me pray with a mind that is too tired to be cohesive. Branches are falling everywhere as gusts tug and try to pull my tent from the earth. A tractor moves waste 75 feet from me rolling piles of fermenting waste. I want to be anywhere else.

17 October 2002
Morning comes in dragging its feet. I am too happy to see straight. I pack my filthy things in reluctant disgust. In the front of my mind is the real fear that I've adopted this horrible smell onto everything I own. With the storm gone the foul air around me is free to rise. I smell only this fresh morning. I hurry from the trees quietly and quickly afraid of waking the beast I slept with.

1200hrs. Already out of Plymouth I worry that I am moving too fast but the newspaper shows that they are shoveling snow just north of me as winter closes in. Starring at the sky I walk faster.
18 October 2002

The morning paper reads about the dying moose population. Thousands of ticks are covering the young. As winter does its tour they are so weakened by the ticks feeding on them that they die. Ten young moose were given tick collars in a study case. All died. The paper talked about the effect on hunters. I felt worry for the moose.
The black clouds that ship across the sky are stalling. Tonight my tent will get washed again. As I follow the Baker River through the forest, day quickly becomes night. Ducks lift from the water with many words as I stumble by searching for a flat site near the sound of the river. Here in White Mountain National Park everything is hauntingly calm. Talking with the older man at the information building a mile ago only made me miss human company more. Tomorrow my feet may carry me over the line into Vermont.
Bears are likely here. Dinner is made far from camp. Playing my flute I close my eyes and I am everywhere that I have ever traveled. Until I open my eyes again I am not lonely.

19 October 2002

A dog bays. He is brave in the sunlight. The coyotes that sang heavy throughout the night are partied out. Today life is everywhere. Crows waited for me in a short tree outside my tent. I say good-morning and half the congregation flies off. Even the beaver that spanked the river in front of my tent all night, protesting my visit, is gone. The sun reawakens the color of the leaves. It is a good morning for pancakes. With fingers dumb from the cold I make batter and hum a song that is warmer without words.
It would be easy to spend the day here. I gather water, cook flapjacks, and wash clothes that have ripened in my humid tent. I feel guilty for not eating miles.
Yesterday at a vintage dinner named Plain Jane's I was given butter in several gold coins of foil. I had pie and coffee but the butter was the only thing of consequence that I walked away with. Pancakes rock with real butter and real maple syrup. Some of the best memories are the simplest. The affectionate face of the waitress as she placed the butter coins in my hand was that of a loving mother sending her child on his first camping trip. I looked in her eyes as if the coins were really gold thinking how life really is in the details, and sometimes we can hold people without touching.

1300hrs. Wentworth. The heart of the village falls on the right of Rt 25N. With leaves falling, the village green looks like an autumn table cloth. In my mind minute-men gather in formation on the green in front of the white steeple and vintage buildings. Without a sound I can hear the church bell toll. This is a living postcard of New England. My camera stays asleep deep in my pack. Often when I take a picture I don't stop to really see what I'm trying to capture, and then weeks later I will begin a long journey wondering what existed outside the frame of the photograph I barely remember taking. Today I just look.
Climbing farther up Rt25 I find a large smooth boulder. Sitting, until my heart slows, I can hear the water below. There is healing in this sound. It has always called me. This is the cadence that moves my blood.

1430hrs. I am spoiled. As soon as the trees are weak in view, or the air does not seem as magically new, people blow into my life. The river of Wentworth becomes a reservoir. A green truck with Oregon plates pulls in front of me. The truck stops with windows down. Hazards blink as the passenger excitedly offers food and questions. The young woman driver smiles. She's amused. In a minute they are in the back of the truck searching through groceries. They'd just left a co-op of some sort. Food is everywhere.
"Cookies or this cheese?" The young wiry man asks me, holding two packages in his hands. I contemplate what is best for me knowing that he hopes that I'll pick the cheese, but I take the cookies anyway. I see his face drop so I offer to take only half. He smiles.
The woman never speaks. I like her. She looks familiar with her straight hair, sculpted face. The man asks me about the A.T. but I've heard that question too many times. I try to explain why I need to make my own course rather than trek a path used by millions. I want to tell him how great it is to see towns and sights that someone hasn't picked out for me, but it is so much more. He smiles back and that is enough. As fast as the green truck stopped it is gone. I give my card but wonder how many people that I've met will find me again.
Rather than 2100 miles of Keep On The Trail attitude, I have the whole country that is not dulled, expecting one backpacker after another to march through town like seasonal turtles. I love the forest and hiking trails but this walk is more about people than the trees in between. No longer in the military I am now finally blessed to hike where my feet wish to go. I am free to decide who is my friends are and get to know them.

20 October 2002

1420hrs. Vermont. It begins to rain. I write quickly. All the leaves flutter in pre-storm excitement. Heading north on Rt 5, I am certain of snow. My house is pregnant with food. I am swollen with excitement like a buck in rut. I am far enough from everywhere familiar to feel my pulse in my forehead. Here the cell phone is a paperweight…but I have no paper outside of this pad.

Farmer Hodges Country Store

Stepping out of the drizzle I enter the market after leaving my pack by the wooden bins of apples. Once I walked in the door I am not allowed to keep to myself. Mrs. Hodges addresses me as I wipe the rain from my face.
"What are you doing," she asked? Her face holds an expression that said point blank that she doesn't want the five cent answer?
In a calm, and partly tired voice I tell about where I've been, what I've seen, and where I hope my legs will take me. Without premeditation I even find myself reaching for reasons she'll understand.
When I finish speaking Mrs. Hodges's face blooms into a fragrant flower. Youth is no longer with her, but as she rushes about I see a flicker of the young woman she was still holds fast inside her bright eyes, and quick interest. I watch as Mrs. Hodges busy herself as if a relative has paid her a visit. In a small oven large donut holes are warmed. My titanium mug is filled with hot homemade cider, and apples are fed into my pack. Soon everyone in the country store knows who I am and what I am doing. As people pay for their Christmas gifts, Mrs. Hodges passes me around like warm Christmas cookies. For the hour that I am blessed with her company Mrs. Hodges isn't like my grandmother, Mrs. Hodges becomes my grandmother.
"I wish Mr. Hodges wasn't so busy with our farm across the road so that he could meet you. We have the store, all of this, so we can keep that," whispered Mrs. Hodges as she pointed at the large farm across the road.
For whatever reason the Hodges had the store I know that I'm not the only one blessed by it. I am again thankful, and amazed at how often I am lifted up by generous people.
Stepping outside, and returning to my pack, the drizzle turns back to rain.

21 October 2002

More rain. I finish Peter Jenkins book Walk Across America 2. Over a quarter of a century has ticked by since he began his walk in 1973. Twenty-nine years later I wander a similar road, but it often seems unrelated. Everything is so/too different today. Even Cadillac Mountain where I began my walk seems years ago.
This walk could have, and for many reasons should have begun, so many years ago. Not always am I sure why it didn't start sooner but then I see the person I've become cope with all the eddies that would have drown me years ago. I had to learn to listen to the water. The trip takes the traveler. I am blessed that this hunger to walk persists, or I am blessed that I am wonderfully cursed. I began Peters book when I got out of the Army. For years I've had the last chapters of his second book torn free and unread, to read only after I began my own walk. I was afraid that I would shadow his walk. I needed to have faith in my own walk. The faith has come. I save a couple of black and white pictures from Peter's book and respectfully bury the rest in the soft earth of last nights camp.
This walk is my fingerprint. No matter who begins a trek like this it will be totally unique to them. Somethings can be only appreciate after a rat climbs up your feet, and a moose prances by your head.

It is Sunday. I am hungry but this is different. Without any spiritual food I walk always feeling like I forgot something. I love having a belief in a Creator that sees what I can be rather than what I am. I can rarely do that for myself. I stop beside another river until I am a deeper calm. Today this is my congregation.
By another river where the calm water becomes a mirror I worry about the man I see in this small pool of water. I worry about who I've become. I am hoping for a better self. Peace. When did I quit striving for something deeper? Is this journey it? I note the face of this dreamer, this plain looking man. I see a tired face that seems too old to be me. Hazel eyes, bright like a young child, look less like mine. Maybe it is the ripples in the water that sparkle in twin circles of green-brown that blink back at me. Vainly, I hope it is more. My hair is long and pulled back tight like black feathers that turn to snow just above my ears. Teeth peek out shyly from behind my lips, forgetting that they are no longer crooked. For years I taught them to hide, and they are comfortable with the habit. From too much coffee they have become old ivory, but I have always loved old things. The face in the water smiles gently at me. Things are slowly becoming a lot simpler .
"Simplify, simplify, simplify," said Thoreau. I have begun to listen.

East Corinth

People here appear to have time for life. Everyone smiles, asks questions, and then hurries off for some outdoor adventure of their own. People pass me on the road riding quads, with bodies fat in warm clothing. The small markets is packed with day-hikers, and hunters in red plaid. We all want sandwiches, but the line is more like a town meeting than a column of wanting stomachs.
Sheila runs things here. She and Val breeze through the customers in a way that looks nothing like work. I am jealous. I can't remember being so surrounded with light while earning a paycheck.
Before I leave Sheila has heard my story, and set up a care package for tonight's camp. Val leaves her womanly image dancing in my mind like a song I try to recall the words to. It is wonderful how the ability to fall in love with a smile has returned to me. I am ten again, and I need nothing more that to see Val's smile, and eat good food.

Wait River

Passing a small ranch house with chickens running all over the yard makes me double back. Always I have been in love with the idea of stopping at a farm-house to buy eggs for a foot journey. Although my mind wants no part of it my body refuses to leave. As I knock on the door I can't believe my body just over-ran my brain.
The man that comes to the door is not the man I'd expect, and he can see this in my eyes. He smiles. The man looks like he'd be more at home on a Harley than standing in the door-way of a ranch house. His young puppy squeezes past him in the doorway to run outside beside my pack that leans against the steps. Next thing I know, the puppy is getting scolded. The young dog rolls onto his back and urinates all over my pack. I yell Noooooooooooooo! Of course this only lengthens the attack on the padding that goes against my spine. While I pour water from my bottle onto my pack I explain that I just wanted to buy some eggs.
"Your not going to buy any eggs here. I'll give you the eggs. How many do you want," asked the smiling stranger?
As I pour out the last of my water onto my portable home I explain what I am doing, and how long I've been on the road. Invited inside I find a football game on the television and another similar looking man watching the action. We shake hands. I try to take my leave but the eggs I originally stopped for are joined by sandwiches, and the sandwiches are paired up with sodas. From the living-room I watch the man's hands hack up a block of cheese, and cold meat like it was one of the first sandwiches that he has ever made, and he was in a hurry to get to school. I'm amused by his gesture. Through his concentration I see a light that I saved in my minds eye to study later. Here is a man that knows nothing about me, yet when ask for a shirt he gives me his shoes too. I am proud of this man, although the right words still betray me. With my wet pack now much heavier because of this generous man I waddle off with a smile so tight that it hurts my jaw. It is magical living this simple dream of going up to a farmer's door to ask for eggs. I feel gifted. My mind tells me that the man's name was Earnest but I am not sure. Never have I seen a older man so thrilled to make sandwiches for a stranger. This walk is showing me a beauty of humanity, a beauty, I had until now, questioned. Class is just beginning.

22 October 2002

0800hrs. The first real snow has fallen. I sweep it away from my door flap, shake from my shelter an inch of snow, and start the stove. Eggs are for breakfast, and I eat nearly a dozen. With cold fingers I cup my hands around the fins of the stove that hold the pan stable, and enjoy the warmth of the eggs spreading light inside my ribs.

1335hrs. Below freezing. The wind has not left my face all day. At thirty-nine I am too old today. Everything pulls fast and heals slowly. Above me the sun winks free of the clouds. Hope. The mountains are unceasing. My legs quietly complain in their own montra. They are sure that I can't hear them. A dozen years ago this would be a bother, or an insult. Today these mountains slap. A gentle fear that I can't build this tower sits up in me.

1730hrs. Orange, Vt. RT 302. Re-supplied my pack is a large stone. We are strangers that sometimes just can't get along. An elderly lady asked me into her house when I asked for water. This is odd to me. America is nervous after Sept 11th, and now there is a gunman in the news that is targeting random people. People are not rude to me, but I am not offered the key to the city. So when a nice older woman asks me in for water, and hands me an apple she picked the day before I feel unsettled. She is simple and kind. I fear for her. She turns her back to me to fill my water in her sink and I want to warn her to be more careful. What if family comes and finds her entertaining this large stranger. Too quickly I walk on but what I misread was my own fears, and being alone too long. Maybe she too was lonely. I grow sorry for fleeing so soon. Her kindness is too rare to bruise.
Never would I have thought of stopping at the V.F.W. had it not been directly in my path on this cold late afternoon. I always felt that these posts were places reserved for men like my grandfathers, men that came home poorer rather than richer for their service in the military. I went into the army because I needed it. At eighteen I knew that if I wanted more out of life I had no where else to go. Having left home at fifteen I worked in the kitchen at Hotchkiss School (a prep. school in Lakeville, CT) to earn my room, board, and two dollars and ninety eight cents per hour. When I graduated high school I was ready to begin my real schooling. The army was my family, and I have no doubt that it saved me…from myself, and my past.
Cold, and low on mental fuel I stop. Showing my veteran's identification, I am welcomed like a brother. We talk about my airborne days. They laugh that it is just like a combat paratrooper to do something like what I was doing. Even with all the years that separated our tours and stories, I know that we are all from the same military fraternity. We had been taught in the same combat schools, and we are now all aging while still holding onto a lot of similar memories, and perspectives. I have one beer. At a dollar a beer, I have another and thoughts flow easily. The bartender is a large man that seems like he is used to not smiling much. When he sets a pen on the walk card that I had given him, I am clueless. "Could you sign this for me," his emotionless face asks?
This was the first time anyone had asked me to sign my name because they believed it had some value. Flattered, I sign the card feeling the compliment move into my blood like another beer. As the bartender gathers up the pen and the card his face opens in a warm smile that mouth the words thank-you in a voice that sounds more like breathing.
My backpack doesn't look as threatening when I turn to it. It is always nice to belong somewhere even if it's only until my glass is empty. The windows are now a purple-black. Soon they will be mirrors because of the light inside and the black world beyond. It will not be too dark to walk if I hurry outside, and allow my eyes time to adjust to the remaining light. After I shake many hands I know these older vets will walk with me in their minds tonight.

Barre

The city of Barre comes up fast. It is one of the largest cities I've hit. There are many angry faces that are only happy yelling nasty things as they drive by me. I follow Rt 302 straight through. A man in a wheel chair waits alone on the sidewalk right in my path. His salt and pepper hair is long like mine but holds more white. He reminds me of no one, yet everyone. We talk. In minutes I find I like him. He spouts out the names of various authors and their works that he assumes I have read. Internally I question my education. The whole conversation began when I asked a question that I knew the answer to. I am glad I had. In no time we were trading stories.
"I am one never to envy, but I envy you. You'll have so many stories to tell," Richard said through a sadder face. "I miss walking in the woods." I wish I could heal. I touch his hand but nothing happens. Richard's heavily used work gloves rested on his lap deflated, and as cold as his fingers that held the hard tires. Out from the city streets a sedan swings to a stop beside us. As a driver prepares the car for Richard we say our good-byes. Walking away I hear Richard say that he wouldn't forget my name. I put his name on a paper in my pocket and lean into the city.

23 October 2002

I lose days quickly. This journal is the only thing that stops all the mornings from rising together.

Berlin,Vermont

Coffee is people. Coffee is conversation. Even when my telephone is charged, and the last thing I need is more caffine I pull my load into another quick stop gas station. Unfastening my titanium double-walled cup I fill this time with decaf so my heart stays in my chest. The pizza seduces me from a revolving plexi-glass case near the register. Quickly I inhale two pieces that taste as good as the commercial says they will. I feel sane now, less urgent.
I have lost focus. I do more miles than I should, but I fear that I am racing a coming storm, and I am seeing only miles behind me rather than the road before me.
For several hours I wander Montpelliar. This isn't Belfast or East Corinth. An obvious feeling in the air tells me to watch my gear. I do.