canopy
To frown and remember your troubles no more
The Smithsonian archives contain a cover letter Earl wrote to Doubleday Books introducing his poems for possible publication. He did not think of having the story of his Appalachian Trail journey published at that time, but he had hopes for his poems, which he described to the publisher in detail:
Many of these verses were written under the most difficult conditions, often by firelight, flashlight, candlelight or moonlight, and sometimes key phrases were scribbled blindly during total blackout. I carried the ever-growing collection with me all over the Pacific, in and out of customs, on shipboard, in planes, hunched in mosquito bars, on mail sacks, in pup tents. The results are not calculated to be sophisticated but rather are meant to record a portion of the intricate pattern of global conflict, as seen by a soldier who was a minute part of it.
Through poetry, it seems, Earl processed the emotions and the experiences he had endured in combat. He grieved the situations, experienced the anger, the horror, the sadness, and the guilt, rather than remaining stuck in avoiding uncomfortable emotions. “My purpose in writing,” he further explained in the letter to Doubleday, “is to help provide some understanding of what I and my buddies experienced, in the hope that such knowledge will be of value in shaping a better future.” Unfortunately, his poems are not included in the Smithsonian collection. The archive historian I spoke with had no idea what had become of them. However, his Appalachian Trail memoir, Walking with Spring, was eventually published by the Appalachian Trail Conference in 1982.
Even though Earl and I had been pen pals for more than a dozen years, I didn’t meet him in person until 1995, when he was seventy-five years old. He looked closer to fifty—strong, well-built, glowing from a life of living healthy—and he had maintained the same weight for fifty-five years, never needed a doctor, and took no medications. At his home in rural York County, Pennsylvania, Earl raised chickens and goats, kept bees, grew his own organic food, and maintained an orchard. A hand-dug, spring-fed pond was his water source, and a hand-laid-stone road through a swampy field led to his property. Living a simple lifestyle close to the earth and working the soil with his hands, Earl found a therapeutic way to live.
Earl innately realized it back then, although research had not yet discovered that an antidepressant microbe, Mycobacterium vaccae, that lives in soil boosts happiness levels in humans. The microbe mirrors the effect that mind-altering drugs like Prozac have on neurons in the brain, causing levels of cytokines (cell-signaling molecules) to rise. Gardeners manipulate the soil, which releases the bacterium they touch and inhale. The cytokines stimulate the release of serotonin and norepinephrine, two neurotransmitting chemicals that make people relaxed and happy. The druglike effects of this soil bacterium were accidently discovered in 2004 by Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. She created a serum from the microbe in hopes of boosting the immune system of lung cancer patients. Instead, it boosted their moods.
Neuroscientist Christopher Lowry at the University of Colorado Boulder, along with Lisa Brenner, the director of the Veterans Affairs Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center in Denver, are conducting research using Mycobacterium vaccae with veterans suffering from PTSD and mild traumatic brain injury. Today, national nonprofit programs such as Warriors That Farm, Veteran Farmer Coalition, and Veterans to Farmers help vets heal through farming, gardening, and beekeeping. Earl was onto something, but the science was still a mystery at the time.
Besides growing much of his own food, Earl earned a great deal of his income from peddling goods at flea markets, a livelihood that paralleled his beliefs in recycling and reusing. In his youth, he paid for his clothes with money made from trapping furs, often with his friend Walter, and selling his handiwork. The freedom he found walking off the war from Georgia to Maine became such a need that he devised ways to support himself and weave that freedom into his everyday life.
Earl and I had a lot in common. After I completed my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 1979, we wrote long, handwritten letters to each other. Hiking the trail had coaxed the writer out of me, and as it had been for Earl, the trail was a great source of inspiration. I shared the manuscript of my first book, A Woman’s Journey on the Appalachian Trail, with him, and he offered generous feedback. Handwritten in calligraphy and illustrated with 125 ink-and-charcoal drawings, that book was published in 1982, the same year as Earl’s Walking with Spring, and both are still in print.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s publisher, Brian King, told me that for years Earl would stop in at ATC’s headquarters whenever he was in the area. The two men would sit and chat, and Earl would still tear up, decades later, when he spoke about the loss of his friend Walter. Perhaps what was most therapeutic for Earl after hiking the trail was how he designed his life. He had realized that finding a sense of purpose larger than himself was critical for healing. It is especially important for those who suffer with depression, which often accompanies PTSD, along with low self-esteem, finding little to no pleasure in anything, and holding at best a dim sense of hope for the future.
After his journey on the Appalachian Trail, Earl went on to build, maintain, and relocate the trail; construct shelters; organize trail clubs; and share advice with new and fellow hikers. Hiking the trail gave Earl his life back, and in turn he devoted his life to the trail. In 1965, feeling “restless and at loose ends,” Earl successfully hiked the entire Appalachian Trail a second time. And at the age of seventy-nine, on the fiftieth anniversary of his first thru-hike, he hiked it a third time. A lot of trail magic was extended to him on that third hike, for Earl had since turned into a trail hero. Earl died five years later, after a lifetime of paving the way for long-distance hikers, many of whom are veterans.
THE DESK ON WHICH I WROTE THIS BOOK WAS A GIFT FROM EARL. IT SITS in the hand-hewn log cabin that my husband, Todd, built for me. During a visit to Earl’s home, Todd and I were invited to explore his barn of refinished antiques and found a perfect American chestnut table with thick turned legs that he had stripped of paint. Countless times, I’ve slid my hands over the table’s smooth wooden surface, knowing that Earl’s hands rubbed oil into its grain. Since Earl thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1948, more than twenty thousand hikers have completed the same journey. He helped to create a whole culture of people, including America’s veterans, who go to our trails seeking health, rejuvenation, and peace on their own terms. The trail provides.
CHAPTER 2
STEVE CLENDENNING
US MARINE CORPS, 1992 – 2013
If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth can destroy you.
—Gospel of Thomas, 70
WITH RAINSTICK IN HAND, STEVE Clendenning slumped low in his chair by the campfire. He had just shared some effects his wartime memories had on his body and his soul. Taking a break before continuing, he rocked gently as if to shake his words free. Surrounded by the Pennsylvania woods and a few other hikers, Steve stroked his blond beard over and over with his left hand. His southern drawl broke as he shared his story of war in Iraq.
“We were doing a road sweep in Fallujah,” Steve began, “covering the street with a mine detector. It was pitch black out and we were wearing night goggles. That particular road was a mess with mines. It even got the nickname, IED Alley.” The first team leader and the engineer spotted a hole in the road where an IED had blown up the
