Week 9 (May 27 to June 3) Random Events or Coincidences

“When we’re interested in something, everything around us appears to refer to it (the mystics call these phenomena ‘signs’, the skeptics ‘coincidence’, and psychologists ‘concentrated focus’, although I’ve yet to find out what term historians would use).”  ― Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

We started from Morgan Stewart Memorial Shelter (1444.7) to Dover Oak (1453.1) and hiked two more days to Kent, CT (1474.4) and traveled back to Lake Erie, Ohio for a weekend family wedding.  Total miles: 15.7 miles

Dessert Queen’s earworm:  Dancing to “Another Day of Sun” or with the new lyrics: It’s another day on trail. (Soundtrack to La La Land.) Caution:  Some dance moves like twirling and spinning on the trail may land you on your bum.

Mr. Rook’s earworm:  “West End Girls” by the Pet Shop Boys.  

Joys

• Little Free Library.  It has taken me 9 weeks to resist lugging a novel along the trail.  Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo called my name at the Morgan Steward Memorial Shelter’s Little Free Library.  Yes, a Library in the woods.  Yes, it has 384 pages, but the opening paragraph lured me in.  Besides, who doesn’t like a good ghost story in the woods? 
• 70+ Woman Hiker.  Mr. Rook and I met this lively, aged 70+ woman on the trail at NY 55 headed to Nuclear Lake.  Her 2023 goal was to hike the entire NY Appalachian Trail section.  Today she was headed to the Dover Tree.  Her husband was providing her support along the way and she was meeting him there.  You could hear the excitement in her voice talking about how her goal was almost completed, and before July.  Thinking about her, I wish to be like her when I’m seventy.  No matter how slow I move, I want to keep hiking, have adventures that lead me to inspiring sights, putting my feet in streams, and be awoken by owls at one in the morning.  AND, the Appalachian Trail can be hiked many different ways.   
• Shade.  Hiking pastoral lands looks so idyllic on the youtube vlogger’s stations.  However, in reality hiking pastoral lands on a cloudless and hot day is less than charming.  The path may be smooth, but the hot sun bearing down on me, challenged my mood.  I couldn’t see past the heat and began griping and grumbling.  I longed the entire mile(ish) hiking with the cows for the wooded shade I saw just up ahead. 
• Dover Tree.  The Dover Tree is over 300 years old.  You approach this giant coming off a water walk with ferns, Eastern Skunk Cabbage and purple water Irises; and yes, those frogs sounding like a double bass plucked so strongly the string hits the instrument’s wood and vibrates.  The Dover Tree stands next to the road with arms outstretched into the blue sky and stops cars like Claudette Cobert’s hitchhiking scene in It Happened One Night.  She got our attention.  We stood next to her and I gave her a hug.  You have to wonder: What history did she observe?  Did Peace Pilgrim give her a kiss?  Did Grandma Gatewood embrace her?
• Babushka Baba Yaga Hut (Patricia Polacco’s version) or Howl’s Moving Castle?  It is something to think about to keep your mind off the heat.  The architecture for this water tower is so unique.
• We didn’t get lost.  Future hikers should be alert to the blazes starting in the woods after the Native Landscape and Garden Center to Ten Mile Shelter.  There are many trails intersecting the AT.  The multicolored and multi shaped blazes are on the trees.  We kept our focus on the white rectangle and didn’t get lost.    
• Knowing my limits.  Since having Bell’s Palsy, the changes of the left side of my face has affected my balance.  I know my limitations.  So when Mr. Rook and I came up to the replacement bridge of two logs strapped together, I immediately sat down and put on my crocs to cross the stream.  Mr. Rook thought it was a good time to cool off with foot soak.   
• Ten Mile Shelter.  We learned from fellow campers that CT AMC chapter has humor.  There is a very funny poster in the bathroom showing how to use the privy.  Maybe NY could ask them to create a poster for the Fingerboard Shelter on how to do your business in the woods.  We also are celebrating that all camps in CT and MA have bear boxes.  YEA!!!!!!
• Random conversations.  This hike is showing us that one must have an open heart and take the time to talk to strangers.  You end up seeing how much in common you have with people you meet on the street.  In one case, there was a guy who was creating a planter out of the giant stump in his front yard.  We learned he met his wife at Ohio University.  
• Trail Angels. 1) The woman with diabetes and dogs who drove us to Edward R. Morrow Park, Pawling, NY.  Thank you for seeing us hiking towards the park, stopping and doing a u-turn to pick us up.  2) PTL and his wife at Conn 341.  You were a wonderful surprise as we popped out of the woods.  Thank you for giving us a ride to our hotel in Kent.  3) Rev. Judy and Chuck.  Thank you for picking us up in Kent and driving us to the rental car agency.  Thank you for putting up two stinky hikers who were headed home to a family wedding.       
• Memorable Food. 1) Tacos at La Guadalupana Pawling, NY,  2) Egg Sandwich to go for lunch and a Cappuccino at Sunflour Bakery, Pawling, NY. (NOTE: we answered questions about our hike to the “council of elders” – a group of older men sitting on a bench talking – they recommended we stop at the Sunflower Bakery.) 3) PTL and his wife’s Thanksgiving Dinner Wrap at Conn 341. 4) Salad and Fish entree at the Fife’n Drum Restaurant, Kent, CT. 5) Dinner and Breakfast at Rev. Judy and Chuck’s home.   

 

 

 

 

Thorns and tender spots

• The Lost Ohio State Hat in the woods.  No, I didn’t pick it up — extra weight, instead I took a picture and sent it to friends.  However, seeing that hat abandoned and left on a rock is a metaphor to my relationship with my alma mater.  I enjoyed the friends I met; the great professors who inspired me; the High Street bars of no more I danced at and the hockey pep band I played in.  However, it’s the institutional practices that have left me jaded and disappointed.  For example: how women are continually passed over for positions; or how the sexual assault of young wrestlers was handled; or more recently the underlying reasons a female president was asked to resign.  Jaded.
• Thru-Hiker who was ill.   We stopped at the Wiley Shelter for a snack and found a hiker who was distressed and pale.  He was trying to find a ride (cell reception was spotty).  After finding out he planned on hiking to Kent, CT that day for a resupply (~20 miles down the trail), Mr. Rook and I offered him water (NOTE: there were water closures along this part of the trail due to contamination), electrolytes and a snack.  He seemed suspicious of us, that we just wanted to unload some weight.  We assured him; this is what other hikers do — we help each other out.  He took all three offered items, and we hiked forward.  I felt conflicted to leave him and hoped he found a ride.           
• Nuclear Lake.  Looking at the lake today filled with water birds, turtles, flowering water irises, you would never believe the backstory.  Nuclear Lake was part of a research facility that tested plutonium and uranium.  Like other Cold War era research facilities of its time, an accident involving plutonium happened. During clean-up it was discovered how much heavy metals had been dumped into the lake.  So when you hike by…no swimming, no camping and no filtering the water.  As a hiker depending on clean water sources, you become heartbroken at the loss for this one.  
• Second barefoot hiker.  Again, Mr. Rook and I are left scratching our head at this barefoot AT hiker near the CT Stateline.  Is this a thing to hike barefoot on the Appalachian Trail?  (Note this phenomenon isn’t mentioned in Thru-hiker Travel Companion).   We stood watching this NOBO pass us.  He made me think about the pain of walking on sharp pointing rocks or catching a little twig in the arch of your foot.  Ouch.    
• Trail maintenance needed on the CT state border.  There were a number of fallen trees fallen over onto the path and it was precarious to step over and you couldn’t walk around them because of the densely packed bushes.  The grumblings of my mind focused on the worst-case scenario i.e., I will fall; and these wooded mess is slowing my down even more. 

 

 

 

Opportunities and other thoughts.

Random events or coincidences?

Mr. Rook and I were drinking iced tea outside the Fife’n Drum Restaurant, Kent, CT.  We were waiting for our room to be ready, and it was nice to sit in a “real” seat versus a rock seat.  Larry Ham, the piano player, sat down next to us; he was on break from entertaining graduates and their families from Kent Boarding School.  A frequent occurrence we have discovered hiking the AT happened; Larry asked us where we were from; where we started; and how it was going?  

The more time we spend on the trail, I believe these conversations happen for a reason.  That day, it was as if Paul (the owner/piano man from The Breezy, Greenwood Lake, NY) and Larry were clones or maybe plugged into a universal station.  Larry’s conversation about “how we need to come together” began where Paul’s left off.  Both emphasized that the solution was music.  “We need to dance to, sing to and listen to the same song,” to paraphrase what Larry said.  Both Larry and Paul thought we (USA) needed a “We are the World” song, a Hands Across America only for now.  Music as a starting point.  It had to be a song with a catchy tune that shines a light on hope and a theme that people could stand behind and take action.    

I remembered my 1985 standing on High Street in Columbus, Ohio with friends and strangers singing “We are the World.”  But today the only song I thought of when Larry was talking was Bob Marley’s “One Love.”  I agree with what both piano men were saying.  

In one of my last continuing education classes I took while working for the health department focused on arts and community.  The University of Florida, Center on Arts in Medicine has documented that participating in the arts or going to a performance increases the health of both the individual and the community.  It centers around the protective factor of “feeling like you belong to something greater…that you have a place in the community.”

The big question…who will write the song?  Who will join in singing, dancing or listening to this tune?  Mr. Rook and I would.  

 

Reference

Choo, Yangsze. The Ghost Bride: A novel. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2014.  

Coelho, Paulo. The Witch of Portobello. Harpers Collins, 2007.

Cobert, Claudette. It Happened One Night. Directed by Frank Capra. Columbia Pictures, 1934.  See her performance on Movie Clip https://youtu.be/Ar-hnj5Zsk4?si=_gajBtgOTa9_PAHc

Jackson, Michael and Richie, Lionel. “We are the world.” We Are the World.  Columbia, 1985.  For those not familiar with the song click here.  https://youtu.be/4M7c-JOnPdw?si=giX4T4B1GC2a3kJo

Hurwitz, Justin, Pasek, Benj and Paul, Justin.  “Another Day of Sun,” La La Land Motion Picture Soundtrack.  Interscope, 2016.  You can dance along carefully on the trail to this clip https://youtu.be/7CVfTd-_qbc?si=biRkb5-wx4iJslg

Marley, Bob and the Wailers. “One Love,” Exodus. Island Records, 1977.  Jam to the song at this link:   https://youtu.be/vdB-8eLEW8g?si=58K0ngrUIA19KJ7K

Miyazaki, Hayao and Jones, Diane Wynn. Howl’s Moving Castle. Studio Ghibli, 2004.

Pet Shop Boys. “West End Girls,” Please. Advision, 1986.  Hear the remastered song here.https://youtu.be/-G8KmNF-xc4?si=WEa0MUbHbDQV9KLr

Polacco, Patricia.  Babushka Baba Yaga. Puffin Books, 1999.