[at-l] Policing the trail...

[lbooher at pure.net (Leslie Booher)]

In a message dated 5/20/2005 7:43:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
AThiker@smithville.net writes:

I quite  honestly doubt that the guy who invented earplugs was thinking about same  guy walking in the woods not wanting to hear a chainsaw running. 


In his conscious mind you are probably correct but in the great  subconscious or perhaps the unconscious he invented the product for all to  utilize.  We who use ear stoppers do not give a fig about why they were invented but only that they work.  When noise abounds so then ear plugs  will be used with satisfaction. 
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This explains exactly what I've been thinking for years about the trail experience: the trail was created and put out there; its use morphs to the needs and practices of the time and person using it.  The Subject Line still says "Policing the trail...", but the way it's being realized now is not what was intended when it was first put out there.  It doesn't matter.  When you invent or build something, you have no control over the way it's later used.  Cell phones are an example: they were invented and released to the public, who uses them to keep up with their children, to call home from the trail, to buy and sell drugs, to phone 911, to make obscene calls, to say sweet nothings to a significant other, whatever.  The person who invented cell phones can't control what they're later used for, any more than Benton MacKaye could determine what the trail would become.  He even threw in the towel when Myron Avery, who you will remember did the real gut work of getting the trail off paper and onto the ground, wanted to compromise and make room for Skyline Drive, which was probably a very intelligent move.  Yet, we still have a trail, and we still enjoy it.  When Earl Shaffer sent in his report of his first thru-hike, there was much grumbling that that wasn't what the trail was meant for.  But it was the sign of the way the wind was blowing.

Whether we hike for pure pleasure, to win a bet, to solicit money for a cause, for pure cussedness, with a set of rules a mile long, to "find ourselves", to widen our world, whatever, it's still our hike, and the trail is still there for us to do it on.  We do need to protect it, but only for our own needs, not for the needs of Benton Mackaye.

Thank you.  I'm done with my rant for tonight.  I don't want to hear how I don't understand the "purpose" of the trail, because I understand it as well as anyone needs to in this day and age.  It's there, I enjoy it, I pay my dues back.  

anklebear