People Met = 16
Before this journey started I enrolled in a marketing program targeted for authors. I learned much about what I had been doing wrong and followed the advice of the program to tap into your passion; in our case that is long-distance hiking. Another perk of the program is free advertisement in a trade journal for broadcast media producers looking for folks to interview.
The perk included copyrighting of the advertisements by people who get paid to do it all the time. I send in my ideas and someone refines it. One time I sent in something about communities being the tonic to large mass society: such as corporations, government and interest groups. The copyrighter titled it “What politicians get wrong” and dropped off the mention of corporations altogether. I guess faulting corporations, even when lumped together with other mass society targets, is taboo if you want to get interviewed.
During our couple days off after finishing the ADT I had a five minute radio interview solicited from the “What politicians get wrong” banner. The interview went very well as I hit upon a theme that related a problem identified in the book I wrote, Systems out of Balance, with something experienced all throughout this hike.
Those who get my email updates already know what this theme is. (If you want email updates from me, though admittedly there are not many left relating to this journey, just make a comment on the blog. Also, be aware that the next edition of the newsletter will be coming out soon.) Everywhere across this country people wish us to “be safe” in parting; not once did someone wish us to “be happy” or even “be well.”
This may seem to be a detail of little consequence to you. Granted, I would not take any single person’s wishes for us to “be safe” in anyway other than the charitable manner in which it was offered. Yet when a social behavior becomes pervasive, something about that society generally provides a cause. The cause for us to focus on being safe gets in the way of being kind.
The last leg of this journey will provide some opportunity to flesh out this theme. Please stay tuned.
Serinda, Reese, Lydia, Cyrus and Ethan Conner
We did a studio interview with Jen, Mark and Lynnette of WMDT 47
Cathy was in awe and gave us a hug
Sean, Renee and Tony at Enterprise, where we rented a car to get to Charissa’s graduation
Billy Talbot fixed the plumbing at the Conner’s while we were there
Tom treated us to lunch at Vintage Cafe
Bernadette and Ryan were with us on a tour of Dogfish Brewery
Kristen was our tour guide at Dogfish Brewery
i think many of us spend so much time and effort on ‘being safe’ from anything that there isn’t any time or room left to really do something. we are so safe that we can’t enjoy life or other peoples company. we are too afraid that anything we do could be dangerous that we don’t do anything. sorry for the rant, you hit on one of my pet peeves. stan from great bend, ks.
Greetings Stan,
The “old guy” replying here LOL. I think there are a variety of causes, and I was going to cite some, but I’ve been interrupted by more kindness here in New Jersey. Glad to see we are on the same page here.
Kirk
Kirk & Cindy, it was an absolute pleasure to meet both of at dogfish head. Your trek is an incredible accomplishment and we are glad to have been a small part of it. You are both truly inspiring. I look forward to reading more of your blog and seeing the adventure that you recently completed. I hope the rest of your voyage is met with more trail angels and interesting times.
If I ever hike the CT portion of the AT I will look you up.
– Ryan and Bernadette
Greetings Ryan and Bernadette,
So nice to meet you at the brewery tour. You know you’ve got a meal, shower, etc. when you hike near our place on the AT.
Kirk