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Re: [at-l] Comments

If you think Wing Foot needs every Tom, Dick and Harry to run to his defense, 
then you must not think too much of his work...
His dedication & work "speak" for themselves.  In life, you can't please 
everyone...  So don't slug it out with the Not so silent minority that will 
always disagree...

Russ

> 
> Let me start off by saying that I consider Wingfoot to be a very good
> friend of mine, we talk via telephone on almost a daily basis, so take this
> into consideration when you read what I am about to say. I should also say
> that I don't know Mr. Seiler and therefore hold nothing against him.
> When I read Mr. Seiler's post on ATML I took it as being a personal attack
> on Wingfoot. If you know Dan you know that you can't sepperate him from his
> work. He works 7 days a week, about 16 hours a day, and if you have ever
> been to the "Center" you know that he is not getting rich off of this. What
> a lot of people don't know is that he left a very prosperous engineering
> career to do what he does today, they also don't know that when he made the
> Anniversary hike in '87 he paid for everything out of his own pocket and in
> the process helped to raise a considerable sum of money for the ATC, how
> did he benifit from this? He wound up poorer and harder worked just so we
> can have a more enjoyable experience on the trail.
> When Dan first started talking to me about creating Trailplace, and the
> vision he had of how it could help hikers I tried to warn him. The Net is a
> very fickle society and hard work is often not rewarded. He accepted this
> and went ahead with a project that has robbed him of sleep and cost him a
> considerable ammount of money. So when a book that he works very hard on
> each year is mentioned in a way that seems to call it a detriment to the
> trail he is understandably offended. Many times he has called me in total
> disgust at the lack of desire to help new hikers, he has offered a place
> where this can be done and few seem willing to help. He is also alarmed at
> the comments that have been made on the list by a very few people that seem
> to personally attack other persons, either on or off the list. It quite
> often seems to me that these mailing lists turn us all into a bunch of 2
> year olds. We become very petty and miss the grand oppertunity that we have
> to help each other. 
> I remember when I first joined AT-L and how impressed I was at the advice
> offered, lately it seems that neither list has been able to offer much that
> would help a would be thru-hiker. Dan tells me that his list for people
> hiking this year is doing very well and has no contriversies at all, maybe
> we could all leran something from this?
> I would love to get back to discussing things such as titanium cooksets and
> 2 man tents. Or maybe we could talk about the days we have spent on the
> trail when we couldn't think of anything we would rather be doing or any
> place we would rather be. Why do we care who owns what words and where
> people get their info, the net gives us all a wonderful way to share with
> each other, and I think we should just be grateful that people like
> Wingfoot and Ryan are around to help make this possible.
> 
> Hoping we can get back to topics like how to get the stink out of Teva's,
> E. George Oeser (aka Needles)
> 
 > 

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