THE STRANGER ( Archived) (13)

I've found that it's not only people that I recognize and/or share the kinship/enmity with but also places and animals. I once backpacked several weeks though the Rocky Mountain West with little more than a crude map drawn on a brown paper bag and yet nearly everything I saw was somehow familiar to me. It was amazing! In one particular instance a hail storm caught me in the open at 10,000 feet but I somehow "knew" about a cave (with firewood!) that was only another 1/4 mile in the direction I was traveling. In another case, I started up a small canyon in search of rosehips to supplement my diet and was immediately beset with a feeling of distinct and direct enmity, almost of hatred. It literally almost knocked me to my knees and I was starting to hyperventillate by the time I "got away" and out of the canyon. Talking with Basque sheepherder a few days later, I learned that the canyon I'd gone into had been the scene of a particulary fierce pitched battle between a group of Trappers and a party of Blackfoot Indians in the 1830's.

I've walked right up to wild animals that "no one can approach" and picked wild gooseberries within a stones throw of the den of a Mama Bobcat and her cubs and we enjoyed each other's company. And I've been set upon by "tame" critters that "never did that before!"

I've taken roads and trails, not shown on maps, that lead me directly to where I needed to go and I've become disoriented and almost lost while traveling down a straight, flat and well marked stretch of highway. I've had "mean dogs" lick my face and "gentle horses" kick the crap out of me as soon as I turned my back.

How can one recognize a place they've never seen or been to? How can entering a pretty little canyon suddenly fill one with terror and bloodlust?

Perhaps the most remarkable of all of this happened right here in East Tennessee: There's a little truck stop off I-75 at exit 117, North of Knoxville. I'd stopped there for years and for some reason always liked it even though it lacked in amenities and the food wasn't great and there wasn't really much room to park. For some reason, I just always felt drawn to stop there. It just somehow didn't feel quite as lonely as most other truck stops I'd been to, even though it was 1/3 of a continent away from my home on the high plains of Northwest Kansas.

A couple three years ago I stumbled across a fairly innocent looking (and FREE!) dating site called Connecting Singles. After being a member, in one capacity or another for about 10 months or so, I started communicating with an incredible woman from Anderson County, Tennessee. To shorten an already too long narrative, it didn't take us long to figure out that we were somehow meant to be together and I moved to East Tennessee in March of 2007 and we were married in August of that year...

...And I still stop at the little truck stop North of Knoxville. It's only 8 miles from where I type this.) But now when I stop there, my lovely wife drives out and picks me up and brings me HOME...