[at-l] Off Topic Threads

[greyowl at rcn.com (greyowl@xxxxxxx)]

To make this trail related this week my wife and I check out 
our section of the AT for the Companion.  Spent the night at 
Caledonia State Park.  I know that this area is SLIM's 
favorite section of the trail, but I did not see her or Bogey.

When I returned home I had over a hundred messages in my in 
box (A lot of it spam).  I read with interest on the thread 
on education as I have both a decent I.Q. and a PhD neither 
of which helps me with my spelling, grammer or typing.  But 
one thing that I find disturbing are the number of listers 
(and for the most part lurkers) who feel that the list 
drifted from its stated purpose (which I take to be all 
things AT).  As a sometimes poster I may actually contribute 
to the static.  Earlier this year I posted a lot of garbage 
as work was driving me crazy and I needed to release the 
stress.  Believe it or not hiking can be stressful and there 
are times that hikers need to release the stress.  I have 
seen them do some really crazy things.

The other thing that One should realize that the general 
topics of discussion are: How far are we going to hike 
tomorrow, How much food do we have and are we going to run 
out before we get to our next supply point, How well our the 
bowels working, and what color is your pee.  There are those 
on the trail however that can tell a good tale, or knows a 
good joke, or that can sing or do magic.  These people help 
relieve the boredom (yes boredom) of everyday hiking and make 
the day more enjoyable.  Well, we have some of the same 
people are on this list and I also look forward to seeing a 
message from Shane, Curtis, Willian, Felix, Jim and Ginny, 
Sly etc.  Yes there are people whose e-mail I just delete, 
but even then I still ocassionally read them.

FInally, there is fairly frequently messages that I answer 
off list.  THe answers are probably not of interest to the 
list as a whole.   For instances Sparky asked about a non-AT 
trail in PA and I replied off list.  So we had a dialogue 
going and he is going to Hike the Blackforest Trail.  A lot 
of that type of information is passed around off-list.  

So what am I saying?  If you don't ask the questions you 
won't get the answers.  The only stupid question is the 
question not asked.

I must now return to my regularly scheduled program.

Grey Owl
INFP