[pct-l] You asked . . .

[Bighummel@aol.com (Bighummel@aol.com)]

I realize now that "the hike" started way before my first step north.  

I had borrowed my room mate's car during Christmas break from college and was 
driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood and turned down a one-way street 
without knowing it (going the correct way).  I decided I had made a wrong 
turn and went to make a U turn right in front of a car coming in the next 
lane from behind me.  Wham!  $700, more than 1/3, of my PCT nest egg gone!  

Depressed, worrying that my plans to hike were in jeopardy, I returned to 
school.  

Whining about my problems to a mentor (I can't describe him in further detail 
due to a potential legal problem about the following) he sympathized with me 
and said he saw the damage to my dreams in my eyes.  

The next day he called me and asked me to come to his office.  He handed me a 
check "from an available, unnamed source" for $700 and said, "Go, fulfill 
your dream now!"

The first of many, singular, individual, unsolicited acts of kindness that 
would propel me to Manning Park, one step at a time.

Best regards,

Greg "Wish I Was On The Trail" Hummel