A Letter from John-Henry

Dearest readers,

I have been somewhat lax in my social media intern duties. I blame the end of a tough teaching artist residency, a performance last weekend, several big projects at my several jobs, and an enormous puppet Statue of Liberty. Mostly good things. But I still needed some time to work on this blog entry.

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the People's Puppets, and Kolot Chayeinu celebrate Mother's Day and May Day (photo by Marjorie Dove)

First, the facts as I understand them. When I talked to Michael last weekend, he was about 560 miles into his little walk. He took an afternoon off to watch The Great Gatsby, playing now in theaters near you, which he recommends highly. He and his buddy John-Henry had a lovely time hiking together before John-Henry had to go back to the World that is Not PCT (wnPCT for short). While on the trail, John-Henry wrote me a delightful letter that reminded me that Whitman College either attracts good people or turns them into good ones (or possibly both).

Here is what John-Henry tells me. Apparently among through-hikers and the communities that love them, donning surnames such as Longlegs or Beef is kind of par for the course. J-H describes the hiking community as a friendly if somewhat liberally-monikered crew:

It's about 1:00 at a picnic table outside the Big Bear Lake Hostel, where we have just passed an exuberant 24ish hours. The hostel is commanded, seriously, by Sarge (not sir), an ex-marine gunnery sergeant   [...] with a penchant for Jameson and telling war stories to crustily be-blistered hikers. We piled into town yesterday via Michael and I's first American hitchhike experiences, along with a bunch of new friends from the trail. Since Michael skipped a few days for the kick off, he's had to meet a whole new cadre of hikers. This batch includes Moonshadow and Firedrill (newly nicknamed this morning after his alarm went off 5 separate times in our dorm room waking everybody but himself), a pair of cousins hiking to raise money for mental illness; Yazzi, who is videotaping everything and appears to be a veteran of no small number if LSD trips; Argentina, a self described weirdo, with a striking bowl cut, on his 8th PCT trip; Astrid and Ister, two quite beautiful British girls (at first I liked the blonde one and Michael liked the one with the black hair, but we have since switched) who we have spent quite a lot if time talking to without actually managing to understand very much; "the Ashland boys," who in my experience are either drunk and happy, or sober and not at all happy; and Sky Eyes [...]

John-Henry goes on to describe his experience of hiking with Michael on the PCT. I decided there was really only one way to do his narrative justice. (See brilliant artwork below.) A caveat first, for John-Henry: J-H (with one h, if abbreviated thusly), as you know, I am pretty sure we have never met. I could not find you on my Facebook mobile app. So I googled "John-henry whitman college," and this was my first hit:

If that's not you but is instead some other Whitman College John-Henry, I do apologize. You will have to imagine that claymation J-H (still only one h) looks more like you.

Love

Megan

Ps. Next weekend I am going to go find Michael on the trail as part of a vacation to Yosemite! Will I recognize him under all his body hair? Will he be at the general store at the appointed hour? Tune in next week to find out.