[at-l] Re: Creation of the AT

[saunterer@jimbullard.org (saunterer@jimbullard.org)]

At 12:28 AM 1/8/02 -0500, Dave Hicks wrote:
>I have no intent to tarnish MacKaye's central inspiring impetus to the AT.
>
>In fact I wish every hiker would read the "proposal," in its entirety --
>not just excerpts, banter around out of context.  [Come to think of it, I
>doubt that most folk who have put foot on the AT, even know of the article,
>or have read any excerpts -- much less the whole thing.]

Been there, done that and I sat through the entire symposium on McKay's 
writings at the last gathering which more than a few found boring and 
bailed out of.  It was rather dry but interesting and educational 
never-the-less.  In fact it was the McKay symposium that inspired this 
normally asocial type to brave the masses at the Gathering.  Had it not 
been on the agenda I would not have been there although I will likely go to 
another since y'all were such a congenial group.

>However, I will not relegate others to the category of "hacks" -- who
>conceded and compromised MacKaye's version as at any sign of resistance.
>
>To me they refined, improved, applied, and developed "the inspiration" into
>a living reality.

McKay is to the AT like (as the old ad says) Pitney was to the Pitney-Bowes 
Company.  He was the idea guy.  He thought it up, he talked it up, but it 
took the 'doers' to make it happen.  No project the scale of the AT could 
ever be done by one person and any time you have participation by others in 
the creation (crucial word) of a major enterprise it will inevitably become 
something different from the 'pure' (relative word) inspiration of the 
first person who thought it up.  The end product inevitably reflects the 
doers as much as the original thinker.

The only way at this point to make the AT a pure reflection of Benton 
McKay's inspiration at this point is to 1) determine precisely what his 
true intention was (not a contemporary someone's interpretation thereof) 
and 2) restrict the AT's care and use to a corps of people who revere 
McKay's vision with such religious fervor that they would not consider 
wavering from from his gospel.  I submit that neither is going to 
happen.  At best we can have a pretty good (but not perfect) idea of 
McKay's intent but even that is not gospel to the majority of AT users and 
the AT *is* a piece of public property.  And...  just because he had the 
vision doesn't mean that his vision was the absolute best one for everyone 
involved for all time.  McKay was a bright guy who said a lot of bright 
things and inspired a great project.  He wasn't a god.

sAunTerer