[at-l] communications

[Patrick.Elliott@allina.com (Elliott, Patrick S)]

This thread has regressed way past the original post.  The person
originally stated that they only wanted to carry a cell phone for
emergencies.  Just in case something happens.  The discussion had
nothing to do with the need to constantly keep in contact with the
civilized world.  I think we all are in agreement that the primary goal
when hiking is to escape civilization.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Hicks [mailto:daveh@psknet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 10:27 AM
To: AT-L; Jim and/or Ginny Owen
Subject: Re: [at-l] communications 


Well said, Jim.

My situation was not all that different, before I retired.  And I
successfully resisted a pager/ cell phone.

Once a supervisor asked why I didn't have one, when everyone else in my
operation did.  My reply was that:

1) I had more to do than one man could do -- even with the hours I was
putting in.

2) I was working on the most important things first.  Others were
slipping
by design.  Dealing with interruptions would add more to the load and
create
more slippage.

3) Folk who needed to know could reach me in an emergency, once they had
decided it was something they couldn't handle.

However, if he felt he, personally, needed to reach me at any time, or
that
I wasn't keeping him informed, or he felt the my priorities were wrong,
or
he didn't trust the command center folk to know when they did, or did
not,
need me -- I'd carry one.

End of discussion!

When I leave the hustle and hassle of "civilization" behind - I, too,
leave
it.  I don't go out there so much  to find "wilderness" as I go out to
find
freedom from pace-of-the-race that seems to infect all "civilization."
True
now that I am retired the pace has slack off considerably.  Never the
less,
the hustle and hassle of "civilization" is still very real.  That and a
dependents on so many "things" precludes the freedom, which I crave.  A
freedom which also can't be encountered by those who drag their
"lifestyle"
with them.  You probably remember when KISS was KISSOFF -- a truism not
a
command.  [For younger readers KISSOFF was Keep It Simple Stupid, Or
Fail
Frequently.]  For me it is the complexity of "civilization" and
dependence
on things that precludes the freedom to get on with important things --
whether that is relating to a child or the soul restoring retreat and
recreation of a hike.

For me the trail is a lot about retreat and recreation (i.e.,
re-creation --
getting in touch with something missing from urban/modern life).  It's
about
enjoying being in the outdoors, walking day after day in rain, bugs, and
sun, enjoying the fungi, flowers, birds, animals, rock formations,
trees,
and everything else that makes up the trail, escape and recreation; and
which somehow that escapes me in crowds and when still linked to
"civilization" by an umbilical cord of communication.

Although I still carry a small radio, I find that after a few days I
unconsciously wean myself from using it.

I think Colin Fletcher summed it up with, "you leave yourself free to
get on
with important things -- watching cloud shadows race across a
mountainside
or passing the time of day with a hummingbird or discovering that a
grasshopper eats grass like spaghetti or sitting on a peak and thinking
of
nothing at all except perhaps that it is a wonderful thing to sit on a
peak
and think of nothing at all."

Chainsaw



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