the eight-mile apple and half a lunch

The Prelude

I drove up to Brevard yesterday afternoon to visit a friend.  The drive was perfection: 75 degrees, sunshine, blue sky, bluegrass, windows down, no traffic.  The leaves were peaking: deep red, orange and yellow.  Total bliss!

My friend and his wife have a beautiful property.  A trout pond, modern house, garden, etc.  It was enough to make the hippest hippy reconsider materialism.  We traipsed around the property, fed the trout, saw the waterfall.  They own a waterfall, but not a big waterfall as he was quick to point out.

We sipped beer out of the bottles and thoroughly enjoyed the polarity of our views regarding 98% of the entire universe.  My talking with Richard is whatever the inverse of preaching to the choir is.

I also thoroughly enjoyed his viscous spaghetti sauce and his insanely large portions.  They were even too large for me, which made me feel almost dainty.

The night became even lovelier when his wife arrived home.  She's the ideal of the southern lady-- all the good stereotypes: genteel and gracious.  Soft-spoken.  Slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to anger. Et cetera.   She's so lovely I don't even feel my rough edges.

The Hike

The next morning, after a breakfast of cranberried oatmeal, coffee and freshly squeezed tangerines, Richard and I set out for a hike in Panthertown Valley near Cashiers.  We met up with the hiking group on the edge of a huge parking lot.  Everybody was retired except for me, which was kind of relaxing.

We set out on our five-mile hike.  It was lovely scenery and a total of 17 people-- lots of conversation partners.  Everybody liked talking about my teaching, and I felt a little censure for quitting by some.  Whatever.  But, there was this one guy.  He introduced himself in the parking lot, and I explained I knew Richard because we'd taught together, he asked me what I taught.  I said English and History. When we fell in step on the hike, started talking Japan.  But, we quickly moved to the Punic Wars and Scipio, the greatest Roman general.  I have no idea why, but we became a conversational island as soon as we started talking Roman military strategy.  It boggles the mind really.  Scipio first fought with the short sword in Hispania, and he doubled the centuries.  It's all about the genius of the tweak.  (Okay, it's slightly more involved than that.)  Then we moved on to the Duke of Wellington and Queen Victoria.  It was an amazing conversation.  I won't tease you anymore with more of the awesomeness. I was kind of glad that our guide got lost and turned our hike into 8 miles.

Lunch: I forgot to pack anything: my water bottle, food, etc.  I ended up packing my running clothes because my super-cool hiking pants were missing the left leg.  So, they were no longer super-cool.  So, I was terribly unprepared.  Richard said no matter.  He had his lunch from his Monday hike left over, he'd share it with me.  So, I thought it was a peanut-butter and jelly.  No, no.  It was a peanut butter and banana.  A dark beige, gelatinous banana and natural peanut butter that had separated.  I was so hungry that it didn't even occur to me to pinch off the truly suspect pieces of banana-- say, the translucent gray parts.  It was even tasty.

But, I have to say when the lady offered a bite of her apple in the backseat, I eagerly accepted.  It was a huge bite, but I was really near Transylvania County.  Afterwards, I told Richard that somebody sharing her apple with me really set the bar for sharing-- as did half a lunch on an 8 mile hike.  I mean, maybe sharing your soup with somebody using a single spoon would be the next step.  But, that's kind of amazing.  I didn't know the lady, but she was that friendly.  She was a native North Carolinian.

I highly recommend going on a hike with a bunch of retired people.  It's really interesting and inspiring.  Hiking behind a spry 83 year-old makes getting old not seem so bad. Plus, you might strike up a conversation with someone who's fluent Japanese and well-versed in the Punic Wars.  And, people will share their lunch, their water and their delicious, local, Fuji apple with you.