McNeely for someone who claims to be a lawyer you have wayyyyy to much time on your hands. You must not be a very good lawyer. Tell me, is your picture on the back of a phone book?
I don't care who you are-that was funny.
Skids
Insanity: Asking about inseams over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
Annoying lawyer dude, I would rather poke out my own eyes than go back through your little expose. Besides I thought you were leaving? You just can't stand it that others don't agree with you and think you are fos. I agree that you must not be doing very well as a lawyer to have so much free time. Maybe you should apply to work for Jerry springer. There will always be a market for train wreck trailer trash.
Is There a Forum Operator?
Please.
PLEASE!
Nope, never advertised, unless you count ads in the John Henry Days Festival program, or the festival at Talcott School, or the like. Went to law school in my late 30's because it became obvious I wasn't going to make a living otherwise --- folks thought me to be a trouble-maker for some reason and I couldn't keep jobs. I kept aggravating folks in authority by reading up on the facts and quoting unwelcome facts to them. Sound familiar?Originally Posted by Sierra Echo
Anyway, I've just scratched around for a living for a few decades being a country lawyer, or helping citizen groups against those who would seize their property and deface their landscape and culture for the sake of development -- fighting power lines, gas lines, wind turbines, that kind of thing. And, yes, I was a prosecuting attorney in WV. Not a great one, but I managed to get through it without too much damake to the public safety.
Now I'm semi-retired. And pretty much a nobody on the broad scheme of things. But I like old maps, old trail guides, old documents, and the old AT. Its a hobby. So never mind me. Read the Report, LBN. SR48, etc. Its great history, and its an interesting contrast between what is disclosed in the various documents. Its a fascinating slice of AT history.
Or don't read it.
Your choice.
I have n o idea why this thread is continuing, but I'm pretty relaxed about it now. So thanks for the question.
Yeah, I thought so.
Wil, I don't think any harm is being done. All the serious stuff is behind us, I suspect. And I was kinda hoping Kanga would resurface. I'm glad she did. I hope for the sake of Whiteblaze she doesn't revert to her vulgar language again, but thats up to her.
And... I never identified myself as a lawyer, or anything else, in the Report. No such claim. It wasn't about me. I guess the lawyer thing got picked up from the Roanoke Times article that did mention my lawyer/legislator/prosecuting attorney record in WV. But its not in the Report.
There is..but since it is on topic, and most of the banter is rather mild, I don't see the need to close it.
Don't like the thread? Don't click the link...
Paul "Mags" Magnanti
http://pmags.com
Twitter: @pmagsco
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The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau
This may not be all backed up by facts, but this is how it sits in my mind:
Avery thought Shaffer's thru hike incredulous, not because he didn't think it could be done, but because he didn't think Earl really did it. If I recall, Shaffer decided to thru hike the trail, because he read somewhere that noone had done it before. If he read that, then the Idea didn't originate with him. Avery didn't believe it because Shaffer didn't buy the ATC guides, but followed road maps. Avery knew the trail differed from the road maps, and that much of it was probably overgrown and difficult to follow after the war.
the ATC doesn't dedicate resources to decide who has hiked the trail or not. That is why they recognized Shaffer. Some didn't want to, but the board made the decision that "If somone says they did it, then who are we to argue. Recognize him".
The reason Gene's hike isn't controversial, is that he tried to hike the entire trail, and tried to document it as he went. Shaffer didn't. But ATC isn't and shouldn't be the judge, but it did make the decision to recognize anyone that says they did, in one year or more.
Shaffers hike is history because it made news, and inspired others to do the same. Shaffer marketed thru hiking Marketing is about myths. This is as much the great thing he did as the hike.
Another good read on the history of the trail in Ga. is "Friends of the trail" published by GATC, first volume. The Forest service had maintained the trail through the forest before the war, and reported it clear after the war, but wasn't actually cleared until '48. GATC still hadn't decided what to do about the fact that CCC had built it's road on top of the trail, from Springer to Gooch. (It had originally followed the Blue Ridge) Shaffer wasn't the only person that reported trouble following the trail those years.
"Certified" versus Registry
It occurs to me that perhaps someone could explain a matter of ATC policy that confuses me.
I note in my Repoort that I found in the NMAH Shaffer collection a December 4, 2000, letter to Shaffer from the ATC in which he was told that his second request to have Max Gordon's name removed from the 2,000-miler registry had been denied. However, the letter also stated as follows:
Another resolution immediately afterward was passed, requiring all future publications of the database or parts of it
note that no hikes before 1948 or after 1973 have been certified by ATC.
What I took that to mean is that the ATC was saying that the 1948 -'73 hikes were ATC-recognized in some manner, while all others were just based on claims made without any inquirry by the ATC.
But I then noted in the Roanoke Times article (link is http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/291803 ) that the ATC spokesperson said, in effect, that the ATC doesn't investigate claims of thru-hikes. That seems to make no distinction between the "certified" '48 - '73 hikes and all the others. Upstream's post (which seems knowledgeable about ATC history) also makes no distinction.
What I wonder is whether the ATC's failure to "defend" Shaffer's '48 hike indicates it now considers the '48 - '73 hikes on the same footing as all others -- i.e., that the ATC recognizes claims to have hiked the entire AT purely on the basis of a claim having been made, with no investigation of inquiry? Is there now any difference as to ATC policy between a "certified" '48 - '73 AT hike, and the other years' "uncertified" hikes?
Been away from the computer for awhile, just got caught up with this thread. Very interesting to see comments and another perspective from Mr. John Shaffer. Also interesting to see (Post# 268) Mr. McNeely's expressed interest in closing his account here and his desire to leave this discussion. Also interesting to see how many times he's posted since making this announcement. For someone who has plainly stated that his point has been made and that he's pretty much said his piece, it's rather curious to see how many times he feels the need to keep saying it. But quick suggestion: When one makes comments that knows have bothered or offended people, and when one expresses alleged regret over this, which is a gracious thing to do, then the polite thing to do is to change the subject or withdraw from the discussion. But to say that one regrets the hurt or dismay that some of one's comments have made.....and then to keep on making them, well, sorry, this makes one question the sincerity of the "regrets." I pretty much agree with John Shaffer: I've read the report and I've read every comment here. I think some of Mr. McNeely's comments and accusations were extremely unfortunate, and like John Shaffer, I have questions and doubts about Mr. McNeely's real motives in pursuing this matter......and in relentlessly pursuing it, even after he said he'd made his points and wished to withdraw from the discussion.
For the life of me I can't understand all the to-do about whether Earl hiked all of the trail or not. When he hiked there were no "official rules" or committees to verify whether a hiker passed every white blaze or not. Earl was the (if you don't consider the Boy Scout report) person to contiguously hike the Appalachian Trail from GA to ME. That he missed sections is a fact and he mentions this in his book. For example, in my autographed copy of WWS, 1995 edition, on pages 124-125, Earl says:Even though this one example shows about 10 miles of the A.T. Earl missed, and knew he missed at the time, I still consider Earl to be the first person to do what we now call a "thru hike" but that today a thru hike has evolved into something that is harder to agree upon than the Nation's debt problems."... So it wasn't surprising that I turned wrong at a trail that came out to Cannon Mountain instead of Lonesome Lake. Cannon Mountain is a deluxe skiing center, complete with an aerial tramway, the first in America. It brought people to the summit in a few minutes, almost like an elevator in a tall building. ..... A man in Franconia Notch told me the Greenleaf trail ascended to Greenleaf Hut on Lafayette, intercepting the A.T. there, ... Black flies were bad so I broke off a spruce bough and was absent-mindedly waving it over my head when ariving at Greenleaf Hut."
And what about the boy scouts?
While noting questions that have come to mind, why is it that a lot of the same folks (apparently) who decry anyone second-guessing Shaffer's, or anybody else's AT hike, seem so quick to disregard, second-guess or just flat deny the boy scout hike? Under the standard of an AT hike being established by claim alone, without further inquiry permitted, doesn't the boy scout hike stand on exactly the same footing as all other claimed AT hikes, including Shaffer's?
I've even read attempts to distinguish the boy scout hike in '36 from Shaffer's '48 hike on the basis that the boy scouts hiked an incomplete, non-continuous AT. That was true in '36, but only by a few miles as I understand. As was previously discussed, the '48 AT had a much larger incomplete gap than that in '36.
Why disregard, challenge or even investigate the boy scout '36 hike if Shaffer's '48 hike is not subject to the same process of questioning? It seems like a double standard to me. If the standard really is to just leave everyone alone to claim whatever they want to claim and "HYOH," isn't any discussion of who the first thru-hiker was essentially moot? Its the boy scouts who have the earliest claimed thru-hike.
So what is the problem so many of you have with the boy scout hike? There are on the registry, as far as I know, despite Shaffer's efforts to have them removed. So why not just accept that hike, without a lot of questioning, like a number of you seem to want to accept Shaffer's claim?
Jim, I'll start you off by pointing out that the boy scout "thru hike" was first reported 60 YEARS after it was supposedly completed by one of the boy scouts. Five minutes more on google oughta satisfy ya.
its just a matter of who keeps records and who reports. ive done 3o of the NH 4000s,but I have not documented it. When I complete the list, Ill still know whether i did it or not, even if it doesnt get "certified".Im sure there are plenty of hikers with successful thrus that could care less if it was known or not.this whole debate began because of one mans notoriety. The research is great, it does show that earl did not hike every white blaze, I dont feel it changes his accomplishment, onl how we categorize it. anyone who walks from GA to Me has an accomplishment they can be proud of.record books are for the record seekers.
I'm not up on all that, I admit. But I suggest its not relevant if an AT hike is established by claim alone. I hiked from Mt. Oglethorpe, GA, to Mt. Katahdin in '85 using the AT and a bunch of other routes. Assuming the AT had some kind of minimal standards that a claimed AT hike prrobably needs to actually follow the AT, I would have never claimed it as a thru-hike even if I was interested in such recognition (which I'm not). Now I learn, from this thread, that I could have under what is apparently ATC policy of "report only" registry. So if I did, that is 26 years ago. Would that make my claim subject to questioning when no other claim is?
Understand that as an outsider to the AT communjity I am genuinely shocked by the idea that the ATC, and the AT community, would have permitted me to claim a "thru-hike" (i.e., go on the registry) by just saying I did when I barely touched the AT through the south. What I haven't figured out, and won't because I'm an outsider, is whether that "report only" standard is accepted by the AT community as a whole. Are those "purists" that get denounced so often actually a stubborn band of hold-outs in the AT community who think folks who claim to have hiked the AT ought to have, at least to some reasonable standard, actually hiked the AT -- or at least visited it from time to time in their travels?
So I'm pushing a question that seems to me to be a sorta intellectual "black hole" for the Shaffer fans, or the "non-purists," who argue with apparent conviction that its nobody's business but the hiker's as to any AT hike. So why question the boy scouts, on any basis for any reason whatsoever, and nobody else?
The ATC relies on unpaid volunteers to issue 2000-Miler certificates and patches.
Like the man said, it doesn't have the resources to investigate every claim. With all your free time, maybe you can do that?"The fact does remain that Earl was the first to report a through-hike," King said. "The fact also remains that the ATC accepted that report of a through-hike.
"And that's where we stand."
With a primary mission of preserving and maintaining the trail, the nonprofit trail conservancy says it lacks the resources to check every step taken by Shaffer and the nearly 10,000 through-hikers who have followed his example since 1948.
King said the organization's board "has made it clear that we should not be in the history detective business."
This project should be pursued by White Blaze. I will contribute $ to the effort. Actually, I will personally do the work if it is near by. Where are the documents?
If I'm not mistaken the documents are in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC (NMAH)
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