Re[4]: [at-l] Speed Hiking

[spiriteagle99@xxxxxxxxxxx (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Weary wrote:
> >"... Why do you find that (Mackaye) 'considered Earl's thruhike to >be a
>'race through the Trail' so hard to understand?" asks ever >persistent Jim.

Well, for starters, that wasn't quite what I wrote.

As for persistent, there's that old saw about a pot and a kettle. <G>

>I really don't know how MacKaye considered Earl's thru hike. I do >know the
>two men met five years after the hike, talked far into the >night and
>remained friends thereafter.

What I know is what Earl told me while we stood blocking traffic at the
Carlisle swap meet - among other times.  I also know that that meeting
wasn't the only meeting they ever had - and that that meeting you keep
referring to has little or nothing to do with the subject at hand.


>I had simply quoted a second time MacKaye's words that he hoped the trail
>wouldn't become a race that you first claimed was a misquote and which you
>now think was sarcasm.

No - you misapplied the quote the first time - and then repeated the error
yesterday.  I've never said that MacKaye didn't say that - only that you
apparently didn't understand the context.


>Having just read his MacKaye's biography and having spent
>many hours with Earl on several different occasions, and having read the
>testimony of his brother John a few minutes ago, I think I'll persist in my
>view.

Your privilege.


>I'll continue to believe as hundreds of folks who knew MacKaye and read his
>books and papers believed that he was in fact prescient about >many things,
>during his long life.

ROTFLMAO!!

If you ever figure out what real prescience is, you'll know how wrong you
are. Pray that you don't - it's not the blessing you think it is. But you're
welcome to believe whatever you want.


>And no, Jim, I'm not "trying to justify the elitist view that speed hikers
>are
>lesser beings and  not worthy of respect."  I respect all long distance
>hikers,
>except those who spend most of their times in towns and automobiles, and
>even
>some of the latter are quite enjoyable company.

That wasn't quite the attitude 2 years ago when speed hiking was the subject
of conversation.  Congratulations on your personal growth.


>And be careful about how you now characterize my hiking experience, Jim. If
>you persist I'll have to waste time digging up the post in which you
>insisted I was a thru hiker, despite my protestations to the contrary!

Don't waste the time - I did make that statement then.  But then I decided
you were right.  Which of course - makes me wrong, doesn't it? <VBG>

I wasn't trying attack your status - I was just agreeing with you and giving
you a way to avoid the "goat" designation.  I won't comment on the "old
goat" designation we've both been given on occasion.  <VBG>


>Weary, who walked a lot of AT miles in 1993, and quite a few AT miles
>before and since.
>

Yup - agreed.  Keep on walking.  For some of us, that's the only way people
know we're still alive.  <G>

Walk softly,
Jim

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