My Mature Little Sisters

Okay, this one is about my family. If you don't care, don't read it.

I'm the oldest of three siblings. I have two little sisters, and we're each separated by about two-and-a-half years. Lynette is the older of the sisters, and Karen is the younger.

Growing up, I always had to be better than both of them at everything. I of course would regularly beat them up just to prove I could. I would always outdo them in whatever they were doing, and laugh scornfully to rub it in. Unfortunately for me, though, I was the sibling with the, uh... laid back... approach to life. When you're on top of the heap, you tend to lose your edge, after all.

I had zero attention span. I was oh-so-fashionably ADD. After a while this had a telling effect on my quest for superiority in everything. Lynette learned to read well early, and taught Karen all she knew. Karen began reading Nancy Drew books... at age four. I did well in school for the most part (although my report cards all talk about my problems with "lack of focus" and "daydreaming"). My sisters did better. We all loved music and took piano lessons. We all enjoyed acting and drama. By high school, my sister Lynette was better than me at acting. By the time I started college, both sisters passed me up in their piano skills. I decided to switch my area of specialty to synthesizers, since I didn't have the chops to out-play either of them on the keys.

Karen eventually became the best pianist our side of I-70 (she recently charmed a piano store owner out of a really nice grand piano for much less than it was worth, just because she can play Debussy like Pujols can play baseball).

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Lynette eventually got a scholarship for theater and now teaches the subject at Shawnee Mission South High School, a job she accepted to the great consternation of many top-flight acting schools, Broadway producers, and film agents who were stalking her day and night and demanding she sign fat contracts. Watching her run a rehearsal is better than the special features on any DVD you can name - the lady knows her stuff.

I? I became a six-year college student who couldn't settle on a major and eventually got a bachelor's degree in youth ministry so I could hang out with hyper teenagers whose attention spans were compatible with my own.

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A couple of years ago Lynette married a strapping, hirsute fellow named Joel. He's a theater guy too, besides being a swell fishing, camping, and video gaming buddy.

Last year Karen married a strapping, hirsute ninja named Brandon. He's a preacher, ninja, and a fine backpacking companion.

Both of my sisters are better than me at most things.

Both of my sisters' husbands could snap me like a twig.

But I can still program a synthesized sound from the waveform up, or take a sample of a cow mooing and turn it into Beethoven's Fifth. Let's see them do THAT. Oh, and whereas both of my sisters had to condescend and marry somewhat below their station, I married Cindy. If you think a thermonuclear detonation creates heat, you should see this lady walk into a room.

Okay, enough of this mushy talk about my sisters. I've got to be able to keep my supper down, after all. Speaking of supper, y'all should try my fajitas...

Comfortable Discomforts

So earlier this month, I added Great Smoky Mountains National Park to my list. To the best of my recollection that makes ten national parks, not including various national forests, national monuments, national historic sites, etc. I'd really like to see all of them before I die. I know there are amazing natural wonders outside the boundaries of national parks, but you're pretty much guaranteed to see some cool stuff when you go to one. The Department of the Interior at least got that part right.


My favorite park is, and probably always will be, Yosemite. But Great Smoky Mountains National Park was great too (Hee!). The reason I went was that my friend Travis Sayler and I organized a four-day backpacking trip for several of our young COGH minister colleagues.

There ended up being five of us once all the riffraff chickened out after hearing the daily mileage figures. Meh - lightweights. ...And I have to admit we chickened out too after the first day. We cut a significant chunk of the mileage off our original plan. The trails in GSMNP are for serious. Our highest altitude of the trip was just a bit over 6,000 feet, which isn't much, considering. So I must admit I underestimated the difficulty. After all, I've hiked "fourteeners" in Colorado and done okay. I even did Half Dome in Yosemite, one of the toughest (but most rewarding) day hikes you'll ever meet. But even though Great Smokies never gets very high, there just aren't many level places on those trails. That, and I seriously over-packed. Hey, I'm an eagle scout. "Be prepared," right? I was prepared for a tsunami or a blizzard. But I was hauling close to fifty pounds on my back. No problem, right? Well, as I said, there are no level places on those trails. One day we gained over 3,000 feet in about three or four miles, then lost 1,500 feet of that again in the next mile or so. Ascents like that are tough. Descents are, too. They take a different kind of toll on the body, but descents aren't as easy as you'd think when you're hauling a heavy load, especially on narrow, rough, steep trails with dangerous washed-out places and not a lot to stop you if you start falling down the mountainside.

But even though I'm whining, I must confess I loved it. One day I was hauling up a tough grade on a trail appropriately named the "Sweat Heifer." I was feeling the weight in my pack pretty intensely. A mosquito landed on my leg and began his snack. I started to smack him, but then said, "Drink all you want, buddy - that's a drop of blood I don't have to haul up this hill." I had my teeth gritted, my lungs on fire, my legs burning, sweating more than the trail's namesake, my stronger (and more lightly packed) companions out of sight far ahead of me, and I just started giggling. Delirium? Probably. But also, I was surrounded by relentless beauty. I was... not at my desk. I was pushing through the pain and I knew I wouldn't quit. I was having frank discussions with God on all manner of topics. There was almost a comfortable feeling that came over me when I looked at the distant views, the mossy rocks on the trail, the freshly green hillsides around me.

The nights were the best. Two of the four nights, we stayed in Appalachian Trail shelters. Shelters on the AT are unique backpacking experiences. They're made of rock, logs, and tin roofs. There are several wooden racks that everyone sleeps in. It's completely random whether you'll have the shelter to yourself or share it with twenty strangers.

One night, we five young ministers shared the Peck's Corner shelter with two or three atheists,
a hippie universalist, a Native American who was reading Screwtape Letters, and a Scottish agnostic. That evening we all sat around while some burned incense, tobacco, or marijuana (I only burned part of my supper - for reals), discussing the world and God and matters of faith. The full moon rose just after sunset and we discussed evolution vs. creation. We talked shop on various methods of packing, the best trail foods, and how to save weight. (Did you know that through-hikers on the AT sometimes cut the handles off their toothbrushes to save those few fractions of an ounce?) We talked politics. And we went to bed with no one angry and no one being argumentative. (Contact highs? Perhaps. ...Just kidding. The marijuana use was covert and at a respectable distance from the shelter.)

One of the atheists even told us he was glad there were Christians out there like us - Christians who didn't view people like him as the enemy. And for all you Christians reading this, they aren't! So much of the time we use battlefield rhetoric in some potentially dangerous ways. There's a "culture war" or the Left is "making war on Christians" or any number of others. When we talk like that about people, those people tend to get a bit nervous, and understandably so. We have to remember our battle is NOT against flesh and blood. Write that down - it will be on the final.

So that night I slept on an upper rack above a Native American who turned out to be a world-champion snorer. The Scottish fellow was no slouch, either. Again, though, I loved it. I fell asleep grinning, an odd comfortable feeling coming over me.


Oh, I love my REI Half Dome two-man backpacking tent. It's light, easy to set up, well-ventilated, dry as a bone in torrential downpour, and they thought of everything. Two of the nights on the trip I shared this tent with my friend Kevin Askew. If you're looking for a great two-man tent, get this one. (REI, if you want to talk paid endorsements, I'm listening!)

Since I'm talking gear, I also recommend Merrell boots and Smartwool socks. I had no idea what a difference merino wool socks made for your feet. And no, they don't make your feet hot and itchy. Buy Smartwool and enter a brave new world of foot comfort! The Merrells are highly recommended as well. Brandon Speak (my brother-in-law) and I were the only two on the trip who had them, and we were the only two who had little or no blistering on our feet. Randy J. Bland, another friend who did the trip, had his feet in shredded, bloody agony after the first two days. I loaned him a pair of Smartwools, and he said the next day was relatively pain-free. Also, Smartwools don't stink nearly as bad as cotton or synthetics. Again, Merrell and Smartwool, if you're looking to pay someone for endorsements, I promise to do a nice writeup in my blog.