Grandma Gatewood Video Short

[imscotty]

Hello,

Not sure if others have seen this and posted, but I enjoyed and thought I should share this short video on Grandma Gatewood I found on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd1uqeL78bw

[Spokes]

Thanks for sharing.

So that was her granddaughter- "Marjorie Wood"? Interesting the name "wood" is part of the "Gatewood" family tree........ you just can't make this stuff up.

Bada-Bing!

[canoe]

Very interesting clip

[Loneoak]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing

[Feral Nature]

thank you!

[fiddlehead]

Yeah. Pretty cool.
I was surprised that such a good produced video about someone who is so famous (at least in my mind) only has 1,000 hits on youtube and has been on since Feb.

I wish they would have described a little of the history of her hikes, with dates, gear, companions, etc.
Was interesting to learn she appears to have been on Groucho Marx's show for one.
That she (supposedly) worked harder than any man, had been beaten by her husband and seemed overweight. (i pictured her as a skinny old lady)

I had always pictured her with this hobo stick bundle but see her bag was pretty big (as it had to be of course)

Anyway, good stuff.
And thanks for the link.

[rocketsocks]

Thanks for post that,prety cool.It took forever for it to load,not sure why.

[DLANOIE]

Enjoyed it!!!

[brooklynkayak]

I can't remember where I got this, but some may find it fun:

A friend of mine, Dave "Doc" Loomis, author of "Happiness, Use It Or Lose It" ran into Grandma Gatewood while introducing members of all black New York street gangs to the outdoors via the Appalachian Trail. This is the story "Doc" tells...

The summer I turned 21, I worked for a church in East Harlem, New York, which had the highest density of population on earth at that time and a murder rate to prove it. Each square inch of concrete was fought over by gangs, with summer's heat adding fuel to that fire.

In hopes of brokering peace between the two largest rival gangs, the church I worked for had me take the four top honchos of each gang for a week-long hike along the Appalachian Trail in Vermont. None of the eight could resist the church's invitation to take an all-expenses-paid vacation far from the heat of the city.

Our first day out, we hiked 15 miles out before a hurricane ununexpectedly blew inland and trapped us inside an 8 x 20 foot trailside lean-to. As night fell, Emma Gatewood, a 5' 2" grandma who was living her dream of hiking the entire trail from Georgia to Maine staggered into camp. Bruised, exhausted, her gear and provisions washed away by swollen streams, she was in dire need. What made things tricky was that Emma was a genteel white Southern lady. She could hide neither her drawl nor her unease at living in close proximity to eight young black males, her distress leading all eight to bestow on her their stoniest stares.

It rained and blew hard four days in a row. The brute force of nature so overwhelmed us it literally dissolved the tension in our lean-to. That hurricane, by facing us with a severe, totally mutual challenge, forced us all back to what we had in common, our humanity. Like people trapped in a lifeboat, we came together to try to stay afloat. We took turns standing by a fire we had built by breaking off dead branches, thereby freeing up enough floor space for five of us to stretch out and sleep. We also took turns getting drenched collecting more deadwood.

Hiking out once the rains let up, Emma piggybacked on a variety of youthful backs as we forded swollen torrents that would have swept her downstream had she attempted them on her own. Whoever she was piggybacking on had somehow to stay balanced mid-stream while enduring a tight, often suffocating neck squeeze from her two thin, bony arms.

Weeks later, a postcard postmarked Bangor, Maine, arrived at the East Harlem church. It read: "I made it! Remember me to all those young men I owe my life to. Please tell them they are welcome to come visit me anytime, as also are you. Love, Emma."

[brooklynkayak]

Here is the source:
http://www.trailtherapy.org/Grandma_Gatewood.html

[Train Wreck]

Thank you. That was a great story.

[swjohnsey]

I was luck enough to meet Grandma Gatewood's daughter at Boiling Springs this year along with Gene Espey.

[Lucky Dog]

That's cool

[The Solemates]

the video on the side panel about appalachian english was great too

[MarjLynn]

The video was done as a promo for a documentary that Eden Valley Enterprises is doing on Grandma and that is why there is not a lot of information just highlights of her life and her hiking experiences.