week of 3/20/02
 
 
 

As spring looms, choosing gets harder
By Scott McLeod
I made my choice, and I’m comfortable with it. In fact, I’m confident it was 90 minutes well spent, an interlude I’ll remember for some time.

It was breezy, sunny and unseasonably warm. The allure of that day — of all early spring days in the mountains — was as real as the sky itself, a lullaby that had me dreaming of the coming weeks and all the intoxicating promise of winter’s end. A co-worker had summed it up earlier that morning: we shouldn’t have to work today. It’s criminal, she said.

But I’m over 40 and have a family to support. I can’t just run out of the office when days like this beckon. There was work to do, a paper to get out, stories to write, interviews to conduct, meetings to cover. I can’t just toss it all aside when a spring-like day comes to the mountains.

I filtered through all these rational thoughts on the drive to Franklin to cover a candidate’s meeting sponsored by the League of Women Voters. The May 7 primary election had been delayed due to a court case, and I knew that. Cresting Balsam Gap, I slowed at the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. My mind drifted back to years spent in Boone during college and soon after, of skipping spring classes to enjoy cold creeks and warm beers.

My right hand began scouring beneath the seat for a book I’d recently bought that describes all the hiking trails along the parkway. I planned to use it this year when traveling around Western North Carolina, taking short excursions into the woods. The only recognizable items I located under the seat were ink pens, filled notebooks and empty Altoid tins. No book. I swerved back onto the bypass, wondering if I’d missed the turn I should have made.

Thirty minutes later I was in Franklin. The meeting was at the Presbyterian Church, but I decided to loop around town to kill a few minutes when I saw the first hiker. He was in his 50s, gray, and had a full pack. Could it be Appalachian Trail thru-hikers in mid-March? This is way early.

I drove past him, and then I had an idea. How about a story on the early hikers, the story of one of these people who has chosen to give up six months of life to hike the 2,100 miles of the AT? Wouldn’t readers have more interest in that than a sheriff’s forum for an election whose date is still awaiting a Supreme Court decision?

I looped back around, and the hiker was gone. This time, though, I saw a young man in his early 20s. I offered him a ride to the post office, struck up a conversation, and told him I’d buy lunch at an outdoor cafe if he had time for an interview. He eagerly accepted.

We ate and had a great conversation about his adventure, how he is using his Appalachian Trail hike to learn more about himself, to practice meditation techniques and Zen teachings he has been studying. I thought it was all pretty mature stuff for a 22-year-old.

During the course of our conversation, one point he made stood out. “There really aren’t that many guys your age (42) out there on the AT,” he said. “It’s college age kids and older people. I guess everyone your age is working.”

That’s right. Working and unable to check out for six months. Building families and careers. Building lives that are complicated, fast-paced, and full. We are the working adults.

My wife, though, tries to buck this trend. She always tells our children she is not a grown up. Even as she drifts toward 40, she relishes the thought of keeping certain aspects of her life child-like. Her determination reminds me of the college dorm room discussions about existentialism, about how the choices we make every second of every day define us. That is who we are, much more so than the nostalgic images we may carry in our TV-addled, mushy brains about who we want to be, about who we hope to become.

Choices. The parkway or work? The politicians’ meeting or a discussion about spending six months in the woods? I opted for the kid who has put his life on hold to hike the AT. I wrote as we talked and ate, and then I dropped him off at a Franklin motel.

I got in the car and slid back onto U.S. 441, heading back over the mountain. The political meeting was over, and it had been missed. I still had my windows open, the CD player blaring loudly, and my sunburned left forearm hanging out of the car, basking in the warm light of early spring.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)