WALKING WITH SNOW

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Geneva; panose-1:2 11 5 3 3 4 4 4 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 147 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p6U27o1CHy..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p6U27o1CHy..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A lot of writers drink, a lot of writers walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Are there many people who walk and write and drink?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Some obviously: Guy Debord, Edgar Allan Poe, Harry Crews, Malcolm Lowry kind of, Jack Kerouac maybe: but I’m not sure how many, and it’s an awfully boyish crowd to be sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>And what about the druggy walker/writers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Once you’ve said De Quincey and Will Self, who else is there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And is sensory derangement good for walking?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I dunno, but I’m working on it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1yBBBLywHg..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="626" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1yBBBLywHg..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In the meantime, a small story walking and drinking, and of course writing, from the great Sebastian Snow, author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rucksack Man, </i>a book which describes his walk from the bottom to the top of South America: Tierra Del Fuego to Panama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It didn’t kill him, but it’s hard to say (per Nietzsche) that it made him much stronger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He experiences a fair amount of derangement in the book, but most of it isn’t of the alcoholic kind.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wa2CgANLun..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wa2CgANLun..." width="412" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Well, I had made it, I’d traversed the continent of South America on food and crossed the Darien Gap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The end was hazardous, ghastly, a grueling nightmare where Death stalked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Only willpower kept me going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Under weight by about five stone, two sprained ankles, both swollen and discoloured, my feet and ankles covered with gore, blood and bites, a mass of suppurating sores, stung by a hornet on the neck, bitten by a scorpion, nipped by a vampire bat, ticks under the skin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I looked in the mirror and saw what days in the jungle could do.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zkk8CvxEkV..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zkk8CvxEkV..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Somewhere outside of Pasto, in the south of Columbia, he writes, “I encountered three young Colombian men who told me that they had not a peso between them and had been walking for five days without food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I was very sympathetic.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He gives them money for food, and buys them new shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span>“Although I felt quite quixotic towards their evident plight I could not believe they had been tramping for five long days without a bit to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was just not feasible, I thought, especially as all three looked in very good shape.”</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">      </span>They start walking together but they young men aren’t very good walkers, certainly not by Sebastian Snow’s standard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The youngest of them starts complaining about his feet almost immediately, although of course if you believed his story he’d already been walking for 5 days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Snow puts him on a bus and pays for his ticket to Cali.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>A day later the second Columbian starts “hobbling badly, in spite of or despite the new shoes I had so stupidly bought him.” I wonder if it’s “because of,” but in any case, he too gets put on a bus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“The last, Sancho Panza, however, bravely soldiered on but it was not very long before he took to taking buses and meeting me in the evenings at the places I had appointed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>In the end I reluctantly had to sack him for taking to the bottle in a big way; all, of course, at my expense.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">     </span>Some of us might think the whole episode was something other than quixotic.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; 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