Class of 2013 -- Your Celebrityness
Yes, you're going to be a celebrity.
It's inevitable.
"Are you going all the way?"
"Are you going all the way through?
"Are you one of those people walking to Maine?"
"Are you a thru-hiker?"
You'll be a symbol of someone who's broken out of the mold, someone who's drawing outside the lines.
When non-hikers encounter you on your thru-hike -- and realize what you're doing with your life -- it'll remind them, in just a flash, just a moment, how they have led their own life, how they've sought their own dreams. Or haven't.
Dealing with your celebrityness is a matter of the kind of person you are now, sitting in your comfortable living room, and who you will become when you take your first step on the Appalachian Trail to start your AT thru-hike.
If there is such a thing as Karma it has enveloped the Appalachian Trail. If you are nice and courteous and gracious during your AT thru-hike (even if you are not so presently), that niceness will come back to you in spades up the Trail. I know it's hard to believe while you're still at work, still driving in rush hour traffic. I had been told about it before I started my own AT thru-hike and I found it to be true as I thru-hiked northward toward Katahdin. The more you are kind, the more you are gracious and courteous, the more providence will positively affect you. On the Trail and after.
In case you didn't know already, your celebrityness comes with a responsibility. That being a positive emissary for the Appalachian Trail and the community to which you've become a member (willingly or not).
Some of you have not been kind or gracious in your life - for whatever reason. If you will voluntarily become kind and gracious and friendly to others on the Trail during your AT thru-hike, the Trail will make it easier for you. Do you wish to make it more difficult or easier?
Top Dozen Tips On How To Handle Your Celebrityness Graciously
12) When you receive a ride into town or from town back to the Trail, ALWAYS look the driver in the eye and say "Thank You" when you get into the vehicle and then once AGAIN when you're dropped off at your destination.
11) Never leave a motel room dirtier than you've found it. That includes cleaning up all the leaf droppings your backpack and your sleeping bag have left all over the motel room carpet. And clean up all the little white threads on the motel room carpet that mysteriously appear out of nowhere. All that scum your body has left as a ring around and at the bottom of the shower - clean that up so people don't think you, and all other thru-hikers, are pigs. Even if you are naturally a pig back home. Take all your garbage and cardboard boxes from your resupply that you emptied while in your motel room out to the dumpster so the motel room is not left in disarray after you're gone. Before leaving to go back to the Trail, thank the front desk or the owner of the hostel for having you stay there. It doesn't take much effort but it has a massive amount of positive affect for you later on as well as for those who will come after.
10) Don't leave a mess or make a scene in a restaurant. No yelling at the other thru-hikers when they arrive at the restaurant. No drunken stupor boisterousness in the trailtown bars at night. If you visit an AYCE, don't make a pig of yourself and for heaven's sake, don't try to sneak food from the AYCE back to your room in your pockets or your pack. There will likely be occasions where the other patrons in the restaurant are going to be looking at you - staring -- sizing you up as either a thru-hiker or a homeless person. Don't make them think you're a homeless person - have manners when you eat rather than scarfing food as fast as you can shovel it down your gullet. Make sure you're not wandering the restaurant with gobs off food sticking to your beard. Remember: Little pinkies up. The world is watching. Be the celebrity you always wanted to be, not the pig people will remember you are.
9) Make sure you clean out the washing machine you use at the laundromats along the Trail after your clothes are pulled out. Yeah, I know -- there may still be clods of mud at the bottom of the washing machine. Clean those out so the next person doesn't start out their wash load with mud from your thru-hike on their clothes. And guess what? There may be mud in the dryer when you pull your ahem, clean clothes out of the dryer. Just put your head inside the dryer drum and do a visual inspection of the inside of the dryer drum so the next person to use the dryer doesn't end up with Appalachian Trail stuck to their clean clothes. Britney Spears has people who do that for her -- you being a celebrity will have to do it for yourself.
8) When you meet people at a shelter and they're not thru-hikers, be friendly and cordial. What, you think just because they're not thru-hikers they don't deserve your conversation and you can sit in the corner and be aloof? If that's the case, your thru-hike has gone to your head and that likely means you probably won't be one of those who finish. The percentages against you finishing your AT thru-hike are already stacked way against you -- Why would you upset the gods?
7) Every single trail maintainer that you meet along the Trail - thank each of them. Tell them how much you appreciate what they do for the Trail. It doesn't take much effort to thank trail maintainers you meet along the way -- so be friendly and thank each of them for their work. You, as an AT thru-hiker, wouldn't even have had the opportunity to take on this great challenge without the work of the trail maintainers. So wise up and realize quickly the world does not revolve solely around you alone.
6) If you currently make six figures, bring $200 in twenty dollar bills along with you to specifically give to someone you meet who will be in need. Carry it in your backpack and don't spend it. Don't even think about it. You'll find, somewhere along the Trail, maybe not even until you reach Maine, how you can help another who has been less financially fortunate. Don't make a big deal out of it, don't talk about it to anyone else. You'll know positively when the time is right to utilize that $200 in cash to help another.
5) When you're approached by tourists and they don't know what the Appalachian Trail is about, take time out to talk with them and tell them about that footpath that runs all the way from Georgia to Maine. It will be a highlight of their vacation and will be one of such a great number of memories you'll treasure later when your AT thru-hike is completed. There's more than a good chance they'll want to get their picture taken with you so be gracious and stand there with them while someone else takes the photo. Then, take a photo of them so you have that memory captured for later.
4) It doesn't matter how much you think you're a celebrity - if you leave a mess in the shelter or a bunch of food or garbage in the fire ring you're a di.. I mean, you're disrespectful of the Trail where so many people have worked hard to make available to di.. I mean, people like you.
3) When you get to the ATC Headquarters in Harper's Ferry, be especially kind to the people there who work in the building. Most are volunteers who give their time freely to keep the gears working at the Headquarters. If they want to document your hike for a couple of moments (for statistical keeping, not because of your celebrityness) - let them. Get your photo taken if the volunteers wish to take your photo and put it into the ATC photo books.
2) Do not harangue people who have skipped sections of the Trail or those who are calling themselves thru-hikers who are not. I know you'll eventually figure this out but -- it doesn't matter when you're hiking. Why burden yourself with the actions of others? What, the burden of climbing and descending mountains every day isn't already enough of a challenge for you that you have to take on the problems of others as your own? That makes you more important? Makes you more of a celebrity? It doesn't. It lessens your experience. It will make the Trail more difficult for you.
1) Smile. Always smile. When you walk up to a shelter full of people, smile at them when you arrive. It'll be contagious! Smile like you are the luckiest person on the planet because you're able to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. Guess what -- you are.
Datto
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Originally Posted by quilteresq
