Hiking in the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park – A near-perfect day – A new member’s impressions of the hiking group – How one descends into squalor – Tom Reed’s change of career – Evening statistics
Today I repeated the hike I led with the Vigorous Hikers nearly a year ago, consisting of a circuit via the Brown Mountain, Rocky Mountain, Big Portal Run, Big Run Loop, and Appalachian Trails. As was the case last year only three hikers participated. It is a shame that the long drive seems to discourage so many of the hikers in the group from taking part in it, but we have driven just as far to other hikes, and to my mind this one is as good as any of them. It is particularly notable for the number of birds that flit through the region: today, for instance, I saw no fewer than three indigo buntings. The first part of the hike goes through the Big Run valley, defined by nearly perpendicular rock walls and carpeted with numerous wild flowers, such as starry chickweed, wild geranium, pinxter azaleas, phlox, and even a few dwarf irises. Then, after lunching at the Big Run Overlook (with its view of the Rockytop ridge joining the main Blue Ridge and of the cliffs of Rocky Mountain and its talus slopes of white Erwin quartzite), it goes east of Skyline Drive along the Appalachian Trail, a section that provides several dramatic overlooks of the valleys both to the east and the west of the ridgeline that the trail traverses.
It felt like an eon since I had hiked in such conditions, with warm but not sultry temperatures and a cloudless sky. This spring has been relatively chilly to date and it has had numerous wet days as well. It is true that the recent rains had filled Big Run to abundance and that the stream crossings proved troublesome at times, but every other respect the hike was ideal. The ascents are not especially steep, but the one from the bottom of the Big Run valley to the overlook covers 1500 feet in 2.2 miles, and there are three relatively brief but rather steep climbs on the AT whose total adds nearly 1500 additional feet – so it stimulates sufficiently to get the blood flowing in one’s veins.
I met a new club member at the Centreville commuter area and we carpooled together. He had hiked a good deal in the past, but he ran into difficulties during the first part of the hike and decided to bail out when we reached Skyline Drive, preferring to wait until I had completed the hike and could drive back to pick him up. I was a bit reluctant to agree to this, for it meant that he would have to wait for two hours. In the end, however, I agreed. I was expecting to find him somewhat aggrieved with the way matters turned out for him, but when I drove back, I found him awaiting me with perfect good humor. He was quite satisfied with the amount of hiking he had done (nearly 10 miles and at least 1500 of elevation gain) and said that he intended to hike more regularly to be able to withstand the demands of other hikers in the Vigorous Hikers’ schedule. He also insisted on treating me to coffee at a place where we stopped together on the way back to Centreville – which was, indeed, very refreshing under the circumstances. He commented with some wonder about the speed with which we moved and he made one remark that I found rather curious: “How thin and trim you all are!” he exclaimed. “Not an ounce of superfluous fat on any one of you” – which is an interesting observation from someone who once served in the Israeli army. I would not describe any of us in precisely those terms, but I suppose it is possible that to some onlookers we might appear to have a lean and hungry look.
During the hike I conversed with JC, who had been a lawyer before he retired and who had in the course of his career had occasion to prosecute prominent officials, including several well-known lawyers, who had indulged in questionable practices in order to support their expensive lifestyle. In some cases they had been former colleagues and friends of his, and he spoke of them with more compassion than I would have shown in his place. But he had known many of them at the beginning of their careers, when they certainly had no intention at that time of indulging in nefarious practices – had even, in some cases, displayed a certain amount of idealism. It takes a strong head, however, to withstand the pressures that accompany the sudden possession of large amounts of money. These promising young attorneys, originally spoken of as being exceptionally fortunate, would win a few cases that provided large rewards, and then they would get swept up into a lifestyle that involved an expensive city residence, a yacht, a country house, and so on. And then it might happen that a case from which they anticipated lavish fees would be decided against them or other similar accidents would occur that provided a disastrous blow to their scheme of finance. And they would be forced to borrow money in order to maintain their expensive way of living – only temporarily, to be sure – and by degrees they would get deeper and deeper in debt, until finally to be driven to obtain money by any means, fair or foul. And so they would degenerate into the final phase, being discovered in their defalcations or malpractices and being arraigned in court. In most of these cases all traces of spirit or manliness desert them by the time of that sad last phase, even to the point of their sobbing in public and groveling for mercy from the judge passing sentence upon them.
It was a strange sort of milieu that he described, to my notions at any rate. For most of my professional life I have associated with engineers, and such stories are much less frequent among them – not because engineers are necessarily more virtuous than lawyers, but because the opportunities for their breaking the law on an extravagant scale are much less common. But certainly no profession is immune from such temptations. The fate of the unfortunate John McAfee, who retired from his career as inventor of security software with a fortune of $100 million and who descended in the course of two decades to bankruptcy, tax evasion, imprisonment, and, eventually, suicide, provides a melancholy example of the adage that Mammon has as many martyrs as God Himself.
Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York announced that he will resign his seat, effective at the end of today, cutting his last term a few months short. Reed announced his retirement from Congress after being accused of sexual misconduct. He is leaving to join Prime Policy Group, a Washington D.C. bipartisan lobbying group. Happily, he will in his new position continue to carry the banner for his party’s principles. He vows in particular to lobby for legislation that would compel all of the women he abused to carry any children to term that they may have conceived after succumbing to his enforced embraces – no, on second thought I think I made that last part up.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 518,335,259; # of deaths worldwide: 6,279,988; # of cases U.S.: 83,778,713; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,025,104.