A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, “Yeah, I’ve shit in the woods.”

Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children’s parties—I daresay it would even give a merry toot—and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag.

It took him whole minutes to get up the stairs. My wife turned to me with a look of serene blankness. “Please just don’t say anything,” I said.

Two days after that he’s back in Atlanta. Says his wife made him come back because he’d spent all this money on equipment and she wasn’t going to let him quit so easy.

Human sweat transports them to a realm of orgasmic ecstasy, and insect repellent only seems to excite them further.

Katz took a big thoughtful breath—partly sigh, partly just experimenting with the ability to breathe again. “Bryson, I’m not trying to be negative—I swear to God I’m not—but I’m not sure I’m cut out for this. Could you lift your pack over your head like that?”

He stood there covered with frowns.

For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit.

Best of all, these days when I see a mountain, I look at it slowly and appraisingly, with a narrow, confident gaze and eyes of chipped granite.