Some tune thoughts
Funny what can pop up on an iPod set to shuffle… Today I had just stepped on the trail, and out of the headphones pours “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. Made a local trail in CT almost seem like looking out over the Pemi from West Bond.
I contra dance, and the jigs, reels and marches used are designed to make your feet move. So when a contra tune pops up on the iPod, it will keep me going at a nice rate. Especially when in the hands of bands like Yankee Ingenuity, Popcorn Behavior/Assembly, Nightingale, Swallowtail, or Wild Asparagus, they simply demand that your feet move. But I only use the iPod on the local trails that I frequent here in CT. I get to the White Mountains infrequently enough that when I get there, I want the experience to include what I will *hear*.
Plus, I have tune in my head that keeps my feet going when I need it. It was August 23, 1974, the first full day of my first backpack trip in the White Mountains, with a group of older Boy Scouts from several troops in my area. I was apprehensive about keeping up with everyone else. I was a competent enough camper, but hadn’t been a strong hiker. The night before we had driven up from Connecticut, and hiked in on the trail far enough to find a legal place to camp, and as usual, I had brought up the rear. But on this particular morning, I was astonished to find myself ¾ of the way up Carrigan, and everyone from my group was behind me, not well in front. I reached the firewarden’s well and quaffed the best tasting water I had ever tasted, then climbed the tower, (at that time topped by an enclosed cabin) and took in those wonderful views. We descended the Desolation Trail and had our lunch at the Desolation Shelter. It was heading down the Wilderness Trail, towards a bridge that no longer exists that there were three of us, side by side by side on the wide trail, and someone, who knows why, started up with the “March of the Winkies”. Now those Flying Monkeys sure knew how to pick a song to keep feet moving. Even someone like me, who can’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow, let alone a bucket, can sing it. You can make the cadence slower or faster, as you need it. So there we were, three of us, striding down the Wilderness Trail, bellowing “O we O” at the top of our lungs. Later that week, we’d climb North and South Hancock, Cannon, Jefferson, and Washington, but that day was my first real taste of the White Mountains.
Ever since, when I’m slogging along some trail and need a tune to move my feet, that’s what the internal iPod shuffles up. And there I am, once again on the Wilderness Trail, alongside George and “Gawk”, with my feet moving. While we don’t always make it to the summit anymore, we always get back home.
Tomk
