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What “fun” looks like on the Appalachian Trail…

I received an email tonight from an old friend, both chronologically, and in age. He, “Muleskinner”, and his wife, “Woodrose” are off hiking a large section of the Appalachian Trail this year. They both belong to our ATC hiking club here in Sarasota, Florida and bring to light the fact that not all of the retirees are sitting watching Gunsmoke re-runs. I thought I would post what he wrote, verbatim, I think it really captures the sense of how it feels to be out in the woods for a long time. Enjoy:

From the EASTERN  RITE of PASSAGE, April, 2015, Walking with spring.

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     My wife Eva (Woodrose) and I (Muleskinner) walked from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in 183 days in 2005 – a life altering experience. Since then, we have walked thousands more miles together with packs on our backs, the majority of those miles on hiking trails out west. This spring, celebrating Eva’s retirement, we decided to return to the AT in Virginia, where lies more than a quarter of the 2,180  miles of the AT, to experience the southern Appalachian hardwood forest in its bare winter majesty; oaks, ash, hickory, cherry, poplar, leafless, branches bared to winter. Planning to hike the month of April from Damascus, Va. north, we arrived by pickup truck toward the end of March and decided to check out a couple of resupply locations along the Trail north of Damascus. Our first night, along side the AT just north of Bland, Va., we slept in the back of the truck, it seemed bitterly cold. We retreated back down to Bland, had coffee  at the local DQ, whose manager told us it was 16 degrees at his house nearby this morning.We had extra quilts in the pickup, and with our dog Tyler sleeping between us, we were warm enough, but we were not really prepared for 16 degree nights; my bag rated for 20 degrees, and Woodrose always cold, even in her 5 degree WM bag.
 
     We drove SW to Bristol, where we cached the pickup with friends who delivered us to the AT in Damascus, and hiked up the set of stairs that rose above the Creeper Trail (a famous local rail trail) the morning of March 31, up over the Cuckoo’s Knob, marveling upon the beauty and steepness. The mountains, we thought, had gotten very much steeper in the past decade, the ancient rocks more punishing; within the first few days, we realized that we , in not yet having become sexagenarians on our first hike, also had hiked the 460 miles from north Georgia to Damascus, and had built our leg strength to cope with the steep hiking with its endless ups and downs. On the AT, if you hike up to the top of the ridge, you can be assured that you very soon be hiking down; little of the AT in southwest Virginia is flat or level. We hiked out about 10.8 miles and made camp near a water source on the Trail. We had plenty of food, but when I went to cook supper, discovered that I had left my little MSR Pocket Rocket stove (3 ozs.) in the pickup in Bristol, and shortly after that, discovered that Eva’s fancy Thermarest Neoair mattress had a hole in it. (shit) With our tails somewhat between our legs, we decided to hitchhike back to Damascus the next morning to buy another stove and hopefully fix the Neoair. (Nothing compares to the Neoair for comfort, lightweight and the smallest cubic volume.) Mount Rogers Outfitters in Damascus (MRO) is one of the best along the Trail, they fixed us up with a new Pocket Rocket ($40), and an expert patch on the mattress, and delivered us back up to the Trail from whence we had come; a somewhat inauspicious beginning, but the weather was good, and we were back hiking before noon.
 
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     The next day we made good progress over Virginia’s highest ground, the Grayson Highlands which is crowned by Mt. Rogers, 5,729 feet. We passed by the Thomas Knob shelter at 5,400 feet; two feral shaggy ponies commanded the shelter, the shaggiest of which was determined to lick the salt sweat off my legs, get back nasty beast. We hiked on late, skies darkening, rain imminent, and arrived down to the Old Orchard Shelter at 4,050 feet, and very surprised to find no other hikers present, we decided to sleep under its roof, and it came on to raining that night like the hammers of hell, we three slept dry. In ’05, we were a month later, there were many more hikers, and we only slept in 6 of the 240 shelters along the Trail. We were hiking with our dog Bella Abzug; lots of folks have no use for dogs hiking, a wet dog prancing over your gear in a shelter is not well thought of, so we almost always tented. This past April, we were frequently besieged with hard rain, we slept in more shelters this year than in all of our 2005 hike, several times concealing 40 pound Tyler under a down sleeping bag as other hikers arrived. Tyler, a short haired Border Collie from Florida, would shiver if not covered, so he stayed buried up.
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     Lots of hikers on the AT these days, the Trail is way more popular today than it was in ’05, with many intrepid hikers starting in February, and by the time they got to Damascus, having hiked over plenty of 5,000 –  6,000 foot mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, they had endured cold, snow and rain, and if they hadn’t quit, they were tough, many doing 20 – 25 mile days. Be assured that 25 miles in one day on the AT in SW Virginia is tough stuff. Captain America, a hiker we have known from the AT in ’05 and the PCT in’07, had declared early on, “Don’t expect to meet any normal people long distance hiking”, a statement that has been proven true time and again in our various encounters with hiker trash. The completion of our first 75 miles found us at Groseclose, Rural Retreat, Va., where lies the nastiest of motels, a Gujarati hovel that has seen better days, but it is where we had cached our food resupply, we had stayed there in ’05, so we knew what to expect. We proceeded on and it rained and rained. Up past the North Fork of the Holston River, we arrived at the O’Lystery Pavilion (off limits to hikers) in a frog-drowning downpour. We ducked in under its roof and cooked some hot food and drink until the rain let up some and we proceeded on.
 
     With all the rain, many of the springs were flowing fine, there seemed plenty of water, but there are stretches that are bone dry for miles, steep, endless ups and downs, rocky, bouldered, fallen logs, sharp rocks invisible under deep piles of wet leaves, steep steep down, oh my knees, my hip don’t fall don’t slip. No new rock faces on the AT in Virginia, all ancient stone covered in lichens and moss that have laid so for thousands of years. Up a hundred feet steep, down 200, up 60 feet, down 80 feet, grab the big high boulder, climb over the top of the knob, please, give us another knob, swing over the north side of the knob, gale force wind from the north, more rain coming sho’nuff, don’t slip and fall over the cliff. A sunny day, the clearest of blue skies, endless leaves crunching underfoot, bare branch hardwoods, long views, beautiful, rhododendron tunnels, beautiful, beautiful. Hard walking, steep.
 
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     In ’05, Woods’ Hole Hostel was a sweet oasis offered by octogenarian Tillie Woods, a gentile southern lady hostess who with her late husband Roy, had occupied a beautiful simple 100 acre farm with a small and magnificent chestnut log cabin that they lived in while Roy studied the resident elk population; the cabin fashioned in the 1880s with great skill using only axes and adze. Tillie has passed away, but her granddaughter Neville and her husband have taken over and carried on the tradition of hosting hikers, and Woods’ Hole is magnificent, better than ever, simple and pure, no wifi no tv, organic gardens, pure and quiet. In ’05, the use of cell phones was considered rude in the presence of others, it was hardly heard of around shelters, but today, everything is digitized, people yak and text, weather apps give up temperature and precipitation reports from shelter to shelter, most folks hiking with ear buds stuck in their heads, they hear nothing of nature, but they know exactly where pal Bozo is, when he left the shelter back behind and how many days or hours hiker Neon is ahead or behind the “bubble”. No guesswork here. No problem. Solar charger. No problem. Hey, no problem.
 
     The Dragon’s Tooth, famous steep steep rock above Catawba, some iron bars embedded in the rock face to climb down (or up), hard for dogs to navigate. Somehow, Woodrose and I got separated coming down, where are you ?? I had Tyler, who is very athletic and capable, but who has trouble with narrow ledges and iron bars, and his backpack  protruding could easily have thrown him off. We waited ten minutes…no Eva. where are you ? where the (expletive) are you ? How am I going to get this dog down off this rock ? where ARE YOU??? EVA!!!EVA!!! My voice echoing up and down through the rock, now I am scared, she must have fallen and hit her head. No reply. EVA!!!EVA EVA EVA!!!  Two students from Virginia Tech, on a fast hike up the Dragon’s Tooth before class appear below me and I ask if they have seen her ?? They have not. Could you stick with me for a while, I think that she must have fallen and struck her head. I tie Tyler’s leash to a tree root, drop my pack and sprint in fear back up the rock to the crest and she is not anywhere. The students point out that they descended by another trail down through the rock, one less steep, and we decide that Eva must have done the same and that she is now below us. Tyler’s backpack has a handle on top like a suitcase and we pass him down the rock over the bars, soon, from way below, I hear her calling, James, where are you ?? (or something like that, I am fairly deaf, neither of us could tell what the other was shouting, but we knew each others’ voices. We were finally reunited and got down off the rock without bloodshed or loss of dog.
 
     Va. 624 which we came to below the DT, led, in .4 miles, to a convenience store (Punjabi) that sold alcohol, so we ordered a pizza and bought some small cardboard containers of cheap wine and thought to proceed on, but at that moment, there appeared a battered van with dragons painted on its sides and a couple of hikers aboard, one of whom, Wayfarer, (my age)was well known and friendly with us, he had been coming over the mountain behind us and had heard all of the shouting, was glad to see that we were ok, and suggested that we come on back to the hostel with him in the van,  the wine no problem, the hostel was alcohol and reefer tolerant, come and calm your shaken nerves.(we exchanged the small cardboard wine boxes for .750 liter bottles of 47 pound rooster).No problem. The hostel was well organized, offering shower and laundry, and was occupied by a number of hikers, most of whom were consuming alcohol and lounging about on various old cots, sofas, beds, and beater recliners that comprised the dozen or so sleeping locations in the three bay garage. Numerous chickens, two roosters, and a flock of guinea fowl milled about, Tyler was compelled to stay leashed. We pitched our tent outside way too close to the henhouse. Among the hikers was a group of four or so veterans of our endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These boys were burnt, crippled with PTSD, some with weird tattoos in Urdu or Dari emblazoned on their skin. One of their number had recently committed suicide on McAffee Knob on the AT. He was an Army Ranger, a memorial to him with his likeness etched into a piece of black granite lay across a bench outside the hostel, the realization of what it meant , his young life wasted for WHAT? made me weep bitterly, veteran hiker soldier Short Cut hugged me close. Earl Shaffer was a WW2 combat veteran, the first person to thru-hike the AT, to “walk the war off his mind”. At least his war had a purpose, unlike the war that my brother died in, unlike the wars that these boys have sacrificed their lives for. For what?
 
     None of this is important to anyone but the two of us and I’m getting tired of writing this, we are just a couple of old hiker trash, but our time spent backpacking is the best time we spend together after these more than 30 years together.Hiking makes us reliant upon one another in the most vivid and real sense, the closest of connections. Hold my hand. we hope we can hike some more this summer. We had plans to hike more than a 400 mile month, but the big rain and arthritis slowed us way down, we did 310 miles from Damascus to the James River at Glasgow. much harder, much steeper than the PCT or the CDT that we have hiked, much closer to civilization and resupply, but way harder on the knees than western trails that are mostly graded for pack animals.
 
AT 2015 028
     All Best, from Poleworld, James M.S. (as in Mule Skinner) Johnson”
He certainly tells a good tale. Keep it up folks!

Images are missing?

OMG

There are 126 Blog entries on this site. They were moved over from a blog service at GoDaddy.com that was discontinued last year. Somehow, the images in the postings have been mostly lost. I am working to recover them, but I may not find all of them. Hopefully, in the next few weeks I can dig up most of them.

Thanks

Dennis “K1” Blanchard

Author adventures at the Gulfgate Library, Sarasota, Florida.

Jane and I spent a wonderful afternoon at the Gulfgate Library on April, 16th, doing what we love, talking about books with readers and other authors.

We managed to find new readers and I hope they’re enjoying their new books. I picked up some new reading as well. We’re fortunate to live in the “new” Key West. At one time, Key West was the winter haven for numerous writers, such as Hemingway, but authors seem to be migrating to the Sarasota in a big way. Authors, such as Stephen King, Lois Duncan (honored at this event!), David Hagberg, just to mention a few, now spend considerable time here, or reside here.

Kirsten (aka Chaos Fairy), took some great photos and posted a blog covering the event. So, why re-invent the wheel? Here is Chaos Fairy’s blog post. Enjoy.

https://achaosfairyrealm.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/dsc03906.jpg

Book Trailers

Unfortunately, being a writer these days means that one has to be a jack-of-all-trades. Writing a book is the fun part, other things can just prove to be distractions, things such as doing taxes, maintaining computers, updating software, keeping track of things, etc.

One by-product of writing that I have come to enjoy, however, is the marketing side of things. It is fun to see which activities find new readers. Some of the tools available to Indie authors these days are the obvious ones, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads.com, Amazon.com and so on. The not so obvious ones are book trailers on Youtube, Vimeo, Wimp and others, as well as radio/TV interviews, blog interviews and my favorite, “Word of mouth.”
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with book trailers. As I’ve mentioned over the years, I find most book trailers to be terribly boring and repetitive. So many of them remind me of condom advertising: wind blowing across some tall grass, soft music, a voice-over about the book, more wind blowing and then the cover of the book. Either that, or it is the action/thriller variation, where there are out-of-this-world battle scenes, sword fights, massive explosions and so on. Very few of these trailers really tell the reader what to expect. The viewer isn’t certain about what the product is.
Recently, I had the good fortune to give a presentation at our local author’s club on the topic of book trailers. It was a fun night and you can read about it on my writer’s blog, if you wish: Preaching to the choir. If you do go there, check out the link to the worksheet for the presentation, it has a variety of interesting book trailers.
I’ve found that my readers are “information” driven, especially the amateur radio readers. Many of my regular readers are familiar with my video about rubbing sticks to build a fire. Many Three Hundred Zeroes readers found the book through that video. It currently has about 105k views and keeps climbing. I cannot afford a research study to see exactly how many readers found the book through it, but I have had a number tell me so.
The latest, 15 minute, video was aimed specifically at my ham radio readers: Ham Radio Hiking Gear.  I suspect it would bore a non-ham to death, but it is geared to a specific reader, and the results have been amazing. This chart shows how many visitors this blog has had in the last 30 days:
I posted the video around the 5th of the month. Over the next few weeks, I Tweeted about it and commented about it on a few blogs. The increase in traffic and new readers has been amazing. Prior to the video, this blog was seeing about 165 visitors a day. That peak at the end is 951 visits! Visits translate into new readers. This was all from a very targeted video to ham radio operators. They’re certainly an active and interested bunch of people. Thank you all!
Of course, without a doubt, the best advertising an author can have is “word-of-mouth.” In 1995, when I read Bill Bryson’s, A Walk In The Woods. I enjoyed it so much I convinced at least three other people to get a copy and purchased several copies myself, as gifts. That book has now sold millions of copies. Satisfied customers will do that.
The message here is, as an author, one needs to pay close attention to who the readers are and to give them what their looking for: interesting material to read. Build it, and the WILL come.

Languages for Dummies.

There is a “Climate Change,” going
on that is very subtle. I consistently have new readers getting a
copy of Three Hundred Zeroes in Germany. What is a amazing here is
that they’re ordering more copies than the readers in the UK. English
is ESL, or “English as a Second
Language,” for them. I get occasional orders from places, such as,
Italy, The Netherlands, and elsewhere, but the Germans are reading
books in English.

In the summer of 2013, Jane and I
wandered all over Europe, hitting 13 countries. We ran into folks
from all over the globe, and it seemed that all of these globe
trotters spoke at least some English. However, you could always count
on the Germans to speak incredibly good English. A sign of fluency is
being able to understand innuendo and humor, and they excelled at it.
Is it their educational system? Is it just a desire to understand
English? Why not Spanish? Better yet, most of them did understand
other languages, but their English was excellent.

I’m seeing it in my reader audience.
I’m envious, I keep thinking back to when I was a kid; how I wish my
culture had encouraged me to become fluent in a second language,
especially German. I ended up stationed in Germany for several years,
during my military duty, and how I wish I had studied it before
arriving there.

I knew absolutely NOTHING about any
foreign language. When I flew into Germany, arriving at Frankfurt, I
found my military bus to take me to my airbase. It was a school bus
type vehicle. The driver was German, and there were no other
passengers, just me. We hopped onto the Autobahn and drove the 150 km
to Sembach AFB. As I rode along, I asked the driver about various
things I was seeing along the way. It was my first time away from the
USA.

I kept seeing signs along the Autobahn
for a city named, “Ausfahrt.” This city was huge! I had been a
ham radio operator for years and had talked with hundreds, if not
thousands, of German hams over the years, but none had ever mentioned
“Ausfahrt.” Not wanting to appear stupid, I resisted prodding the
driver about Ausfahrt. Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I
asked, “Please, tell me, I’ve heard of Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg,
Munich, etc., but I’ve never heard of “Ausfahrt,” how can that
be.” The driver couldn’t help himself, he burst into laughter and
when he was able to finally gain control, he informed me that
“Ausfahrt,” means, “Exit.” I had been seeing the exit signs
from the Autobahn and had no clue. I sat there dumbfounded and
embarrassed. Then, to add insult to injury, the driver told me, “We
have another large city named, “Einfahrt,” too. Enter!

I’m willing to be my German reader
friends, visiting the USA, will never be surprised to see the city of
“Exit,” along our Interstates.

Writing your own obituary.

I wrote this a few years ago. It actually came to me while I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. It is amazing the things that go through your mind when you’re off on a very long walk in the woods. Who better to write your obituary than yourself?

___________________________________

I’m not going to live forever. Surprised? I hope not? I have some thoughts on what my self-delivered eulogy should say and I’m sharing them with you here today. I think it would be so appropriate if we could deliver our own eulogy, after all, who knows us better than ourselves? Of course we could record something and play it back, but that is so much like watching a re-run; I’d love to be able to do it “real-time!” Anyway, if I could talk to you from the other side, here is what I would say:

I speculate the rumors of my death were not all that exaggerated this time? They had to get it right eventually. Hopefully I went quietly, I hate to think I made the front page of the National Enquirer: “Florida Man Killed Attempting Sex With 18 Foot Alligator…”

If I could sum my life up in a sentence it would read; “He lived for the moment, racing motorcycles, bicycles, hiking, a serious Ham Radio enthusiast, author, devoted Toastmaster, loved good food and helping others.” I tried to live by one rule; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

My family will go on. My family—that still sounds a bit odd to my ears. I never pictured myself married with a family. It is a concept that always seemed was for other people. I was never going to get married and in some ways, I never did. I’ve spent the majority of my life with my best friend, Jane. We have two wonderful kids and they’re merely an outgrowth of the love that the two of us have for each other. 

We were never supposed to be able to have children and I had come to accept that. Then one night at our local Chinese restaurant I opened my fortune cookie and it said, “You’ll be expecting a bundle of joy in August.” Jane had planted it there with the staff and was beaming at me across the table.

All these years later, she still beams. As we’ve grown together over the years we haven’t grown up. We seem to laugh more and suffer each other’s pranks more than ever; it’s what life is supposed to be. Years ago we made an agreement to love and cherish until death do we part; and that is what I’m addressing here; the “part” part.

I can envision a scenario where Jane goes to the local paper to write my obituary. Jane is very efficient and economical. When the ad rep tells her the fee for a submitted obituary is $1.00 per word she’ll pause, reflect, and then say, “Well, then, let it read, ‘Dennis Blanchard died.’ ” “Sorry, ma’am, replies the editor,” but I’m afraid there’s a seven-word minimum on all submitted obituaries.”

Flustered, Jane thinks for a minute and then instructs the ad rep to write,“Dennis Blanchard died. Selling used hiking gear…”

I want everyone to know that I never died — rather, I lived! Dying wasn’t a particularly frightening notion for me, its part of living and have I lived! Sometimes I’ve pondered: given the choice would I like to win a big lottery jackpot, or live life over…without a doubt I would do it again, it has been one hell of a ride! Money could never buy my wealth — memories of travels, accomplishments, failures, kids and the love of my life, there is no purchase of that; it is earned.

This is not a time for despair, this is a time for fond memories, stories about all the good times and food, yes, food! This is a celebration of a life and I loved any celebration that involved food. Good food is good comfort and that’s what is needed now. Put away the hankies grab a knife and fork and live for the moment; that would the best tribute I can think of.

___________________________________


Having said that, now I’m hungry!!!


I’ve been given a second life…

Few things in life are game changers.
Some of the more obvious ones are; a major illness, having children,
becoming unemployed suddenly, from a long-term employment and so on.

Less obvious events can also be life
changers, but they sneak up on you, such as: friendships, technology
changes, an inheritance and so on. The Appalachian Trail was such a
life-changer for me, I didn’t see it coming.

When Jane, my long-suffering wife,
convinced me I had to go hike it in 2007, I saw it as going off on a
long hiking/camping trip. It was on my bucket list since the ’60’s,
but I hadn’t really acted on it. My brother and I had promised each
other we would hike it together when we finished our military duty,
but he was killed in Vietnam, so that never happened. As most of my
readers know, I took his Purple Heart Medal with me on the trail and
I’m convinced it is what motivated me to finish, in spite of a
six-artery heart bypass operation.

The hike, the operation and the people
along that marvelous trail were life-changers for me. I could feel
the change, even before the hike ended. I felt different. I knew that
I was going back to civilization a different man, and hopefully, a
better one. I’ve spent most of my life as an electrical engineer, that changed, now I am an author. I only have one book published so far, Three Hundred Zeroes, but have two more in the works. Still, I’ll always be an engineer at heart.

I wake each morning now with a smile. I
know that, regardless of what the day holds, I will make the most of
it, not complain and enjoy every minute—even when the going gets
rough.

Modern technology gave me a new heart.
They didn’t replace it, but they did serious repairs on it. The
medical profession made physical repairs to my system, but
inadvertently, they gave me an opportunity to see the world in a new
light, and that light shines brightly!

Three hundred zeroes, stories not in the book

Often, when writing a book, an author will have way more material than can go into the book. Some of the material gets pulled for various reasons. After six months of hiking, I had way too many stories to go into Three Hundred Zeroes. Here are some short samples of things that were left out, but had potential to be engaging and funny, had I developed them. See if you have any favorites:

1. I was at the Rock Spring Hut, Virginia, on 12 June, 2008. Enoch, a thru-hiker, had relatives and a niece show up to walk with him for a few days. His cute four year old niece saw me as the “Chosen One,” a character from a fantasy book the family was reading her. Everybody saw that as a good laugh. She stuck to me like glue. She asked her Mom about where all these people that live in the woods go in the winter?

2. Going into my heart surgery, I was
telling the fellow shaving my chest about a friend’s wife coming
out of her surgery. The friend, and his wife, are both big movie fans
and the Godfather is one of their favorites. He can quote every line
in the movie. Coming out of surgery, the first thing she said to her
husband was, “Where’s Michael?” After my heart surgery, when I
was coming to, I asked my nurse, Michelle, “Where’s Michael?” I
must have been still thinking about our earlier conversation, I
wasn’t even aware I did it. Later, she reported back that she
couldn’t find Michael and then I cracked up.

3. At Harpers Ferry, New York Minute
(NYM), a thru-hiker, and I stayed in a nice hotel, a Quality Inn. I
decided I was hungry and went outside, fired up my stove and cooked
some cous cous. When I returned, NYM looked at me really strangely
and asked why I didn’t use the microwave we had in the room. It
never dawned on me! We had been out in the woods so long I had
forgotten about electrical appliances.

4. When I left, Jane gave me a RoadID
to put in my shoe. It is a metal tag that many bicyclists wear in case
they fall off and are unconscious. I checked to see she had it
stamped: “If lost, return to Jane?”

5. At the Abingdon Gap Shelter, just
before Damascus, VA, a group of young people were lamenting the fact
that they had been on the trail all week and hadn’t seen any
wildlife. Standing immediately behind them was a large buck deer
staring at them. All week long they had been tromping through the
woods, making all sorts of noise. Groups never see much wild life.
Here, they were sitting quietly and the deer walked right up behind
them.

6. I had visions of creating a TV
series like Dr. Who called “Hiker Who.” His adventures would
center around going into a privy and “poof,” he would be
transported instantly to another shelter in another time.

7. At the Montebello, VA hostel, I
stayed there for the night. They’ve never had a single bear problem
in all the years they’ve been in business. I got up to pee about 2
am. Something must have awakened me, but I didn’t know what. I
looked out the window and didn’t see anything in the moonlit yard.
The next morning I found out a bear had been down in the parking lot
below my window and had completely emptied the back of their pickup
truck of all it’s trash. They knew it was a bear because the three
empty canisters of whipped cream had all been crushed and the
contents cleaned out.

8. Walking down the trail singing (at
the top of my lungs), “I can’t help falling in love with you,”
an old Elvis hit, I rounded the corner and here is this male hiker
just crawling out of his tent. He’s in his shorts, five o’clock
shadow, hair’s a mess and he stands up, rubs his belly and looks at me like, “you
gotta be kidding, not me fella’?”

9. Half-Elvis, a thru-hiker, found a
National Geographic Map of Texas and hung it in the last shelter in
Pennsylvania, the Kirkridge Shelter. He meticulously drew the A.T.
crossing Texas, including shelter locations and a “You are here X.”
I wonder how many were confused by that?

Twas The Night Before Christmas…ham radio style.

You’d have to be a ham radio operator to really follow this. I wrote it about 40 years ago…

A Ham’s “’Twas The Night Before Christmas”

Twas the night before Christmas, when
all through the shack,

not a meter was stirring, not even on
the rack;

The finals were hung by the chimney
with care,

in hopes that St. Nick would tune them
right there.

The children were nestled all snug in
their beds,

while visions of moonbounce danced in
their heads;

and Mama with her handheld, and I with
a trap,

had just settled our brains with a high
voltage zap.

When out on the tower there rose such a
clatter,

I sprang from the bench to see what was
the matter.

away to the window I flew like a high
tension flash,

tore open the shutters and threw up the
sash.

The moon on the breast of the new
fallen snow,

gave the glow of tubes of days long
ago.

When what, to my wondering eyes should
appear,

but a miniature sleigh, with mobile
amateur gear;

with a little old ham, so lively and
quick,

I knew in a moment, it must be Saint
Nick.

More rapid than McElroy his keying it
came,

and he listened and he tuned and called
them by name:

“Now Dasher! Now Damper! Now
Phasor and DX’en”

“On Common! On Coupled! On Doner
and Blitzen!”

“To the top of the shack to the
top of the wall”

“Now Dash away, Dash away, dash
away all!”

As dry days before Field Day do fly,

when they meet with the forecast and
never comply,

so up on the shack top the signals they
flew,

with the sleigh full of gear, and St.
Nickolas too.

and then in a band opening, I heard on
the roof,

antenna work by a ham on the hoof.

As I drew in my head and was tuning
around,

down the feedline came St. Nicholas
with a bound.

He was all tangled in coax, from his
head to his foot,

and his checksheets were all tarnished
with ashes and soot.

A bundle of gear he had flung on his
back,

and he looked like a contester opening
a six-pack;

His handheld – how it crackled! The
signals did vary,

his equipment made noises, his QSO was
quite merry.

His droll little mouth was drawn up
like a Mho,

and the beard of his chin was white as
slow scan snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in
his teeth,

and the smoke, it encircled his head
like a wreath.

He had a broad face and a round little
belly,

that shook when he laughed like the
roll of a tele.

He was chubby and plump, a right old
elf,

and I laughed when I saw him, in spite
of myself.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his
head

soon gave me to know I had not QR-zed.

He spoke not a word, but went straight
to his work,

and tuned all the finals, then turned
with a jerk,

and keying his finger aside of his
nose,

and giving a nod, up the feedline he
rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, his handheld
gave a whistle,

and away they all flew, like the down
on a thistle’

But I heard him exclaim ‘Ere he faded
out of sight’

“Happy Christmas
to all

and to all

A good
night!”

K1YPP

This touched me.

As I have noted before, every now and then I get a piece of fan mail that touches me. This one arrived a few days ago. I would proudly go hike with this fellow (for you readers that are not ham radio operators, CQ is an amateur radio magazine):

Mr. Blanchard: 9-30-2013

I hope you aren’t alarmed that you are
receiving a letter from a man in prison. I just felt the need to
write you. My name is XXXX XXXX and I am serving a couple of years
for a poor choice I made during this tough economy. I regret that
very much because I’m not with my wife. Anyway, the purpose of this
letter is first to thank you for your book, “Three Hundred Zeroes.”
I received it from family two months ago and have read it three
times. I received the book because I have always expressed an
interest in ham radio, and lately, hiking the AT. I now have both the
Tech and General Class study books and hope to have my ticket shortly
after my release.

Your book was truly inspirational and
caused me to also set the goal of a thru-hike. My wife has been
sending print out from trailjournals.com and supports me completely.
I have some questions but I completely understand if you choose not
to respond to this letter. I have also read an article by you in CQ
about radio on the trail. At this point I’m curious what you feel
about a person with a criminal past getting into ham radio and hiking
the trail.

Anyway, I’ll ask some of my questions
and hope for a response. Again, please don’t feel bad if you just
can’t bring yourself to respond. I would feel strange about it as
well if I were in your position.

First, I’m very curious about your
daily hygiene on the trail. How often did you bathe or shower and how
did you do it without exposing yourself to the world? I can’t find
any info on what kind of food to take so I’m curious about that as
well. What type of clothing did you take and how many of each item
did you carry? Did you do laundry on the trail or only in town? If on
the trail, then what did you use for laundry soap?

I feel like there are many more, but I
know I’ll be very blessed by a response to this letter at all. My
wife has also sent me two different 2013 thru hike-hike guides, one
of them being the one your recommend in your book. At this point I am
commited to the goal fo a thru hike, knowing, that if I can do that,
I can do anything.

Again, thank you for your book and
article in CQ and I sincerely hope to hear from you.

Sincerely

XXXX XXXX