Winchester, Virginia
May 4, 1983

Dear Folks,

As I have read so often in the written accounts of other wanderers, it is the poor and the elderly who generally are the most eager to assist the passing stranger. Perhaps they see in my lonely and haggard figure some reflection of their own struggles. Or maybe they are more likely to take a closer look at those around them, and like Estaline Mantz did early this morning, perhaps wonder if it could be more than just a mere human passing by.

It was while walking down a secluded foggy road in the Shenandoah Valley that I heard Estaline's distant shouts. I looked up to the side of a broad grassy hill, to the front porch of a lone white cottage, and saw a very old and tiny woman with shining hair and the bluest eyes I have ever gazed into. "Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" she was yelling, with an excited wave. "Young man, have you had any breakfast?"

I responded that I hadn't eaten since noon the day before and had spent the night sleeping in an abandoned farm house.

"Well, you get up here and eat breakfast!" she demanded. Both the firmness in her voice and the way she stamped her foot on the porch's floor boards made me feel like a naughty child. I went to her directly, lest she call the sheriff on me for refusing to eat any breakfast!

She lived all alone and yet did not hesitate to invite me into her simple home, where she sat me down to a huge breakfast. It seemed she could not feed me enough food to satisfy herself, and more than once I thought I caught her looking at me as if I reminded her of someone she loved dearly. Later, as I stood on the porch with my tall pack on my back, I asked her why she had invited me in, why she so readily trusted a complete stranger.

She was actually quite shy--she lowered her eyes and looked over the still misty vally as if both embarrassed and trying to collect her thoughts. After a few minutes she looked back at me and said ever so softly, "When I was a little girl, my mother used to read to me from the Bible. Her favorite passage was the one that said God sometimes sends angels to us disguised as men to test our charitableness. Well--" a slight red came to her face, "--I'm eighty-eight years old and my eyesight is not so good anymore.

"And when I looked out the screen door into the forest and saw this tall figure coming therough the fog, I could feel my heart suddenly beating faster. No one ever walks down that road so early in the morning. I watched you coming closer, and when I saw that there was something very big and long on your back, I thought surely this must be one of the angels coming to test me."

Her right hand shot up to her face, as if she might giggle. Instead, she nervously gripped her chin and continued with both frustration and relief in her voice, "I thought I was seeing wings on your shoulders. And there was no way I was going to let you go by without feeding you. For I've been so good all these many years, and--darn it!--I'm just too old now to be blowing my chance of getting into heaven.

"Why, I might never have another chance to feed an angel!"

Even though she was being very serious and sincere, there was no way to keep from having a good chuckle at her expense. After all, it wasn't every day that I got to be an angel.

When I stepped off her porch to continue my journey across Virginia's wonderfully bright green pastures, I felt extremely warm inside. Not only did I have a full stomach, but a bigger heart, too. Perhaps my chances of stepping though those pearly gates in the sky weren't all the greatest at the moment, but her's certainly were. And, how nice it was to realize I'd been one of the angels she'd stopped to help her on her path to find those gates.

Steven

Posted by at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Capon Bridge, West Virginia
April 30, 1983

Dear Folks,

How it saddens me that this will be my last day in West Virginia. So much beauty I have discovered in both its people and its scenery, that I wish I could just lay down my pack and stay here in these lush Appalachian Mountains for at least one lifetime.

Truly West Virginia--"Wild, Wonderful West Virginia"--is, in spite of all its poverty, one of this country's brightest gems. And the beauty I talk of is the simple, unselfish kind--the best kind.

Although it has taken me nearly eleven days to cross northern West Virgina's 215 miles of mountains and valleys, those were days that seemed to fly by, because of the neverending kindness shown me.

I must admit, however, I had my doubts when I first entered the state at Parkersburg. Like the dark waters of the Ohio River that flow by that city of forty thousand, the first few people I met on the streets and in the shops were rather expressionless and cold.

Furthermore, the city and outlying towns I passed through those first few rainy days were comprised mostly of gray and decaying buildings. A general sense of extreme poverty prevailed, and I looked upon all the shuttered homes and shops and the piles of junk stacked everywhere as signs of a people who no longer cared, who found little to be proud of anymore.

How wrong I was! Even though the state has the nation's highest unemployment rate--22 percent--and the people scattered about its moist and heavily-forested mountains live very simple lifestyles, they have managed to maintain a friendliness towards strangers that would put most so-called "do-gooders" to shame. Their autos may be rusty and their homes small, but their hearts are as big and shiny as the sun itself.

Because it is mostly a rural state and most of its young people have migrated to the larger cities of neighboring states to seek work, nearly every home I approached for water, food, or shelter was occupied by elderly people, nearly always in their 70s or 80s.

With memory of the last great Depression still fresh in their minds, the old people never failed to help me, even though sometimes they had so little to share. They remembered how in their younger days everyone had had to depend upon others for a lot of life's basics, and it gave them great pride and joy to know that they had helped me make it a little further down the road.

Indeed, incredible as this may sound, I had to pay for only two meals during my entire trek across the state. Almost as if I were some long lost son returned, many of those who invited me in fed and pampered me to the point of making me feel a little embarrassed.

And the young people? I finally started meeting many of them once I had crossed to the eastern side of the Appalachians. And what a joy it was to find that the younger West Virginians are as friendly and inwardly contented as the old people of the mountains.

Even as I write this letter, a dozen canoes drift by me down the beautiful Capon River. Each canoe holds one or two young people who are laughing, smiling and waving, their eyes as full of kindness as the flowered hills watching over me.

You know something, West Virginia? I miss you already.

Steven

Posted by at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Guysville, Ohio
April 18, 1983

Dear Folks,

I thought I'd never make it to Athens, Ohio, my first major stop. The route I've chosen to follow from Bethel to Washington, D.C., old U.S. 50, is one of the hilliest and curviest two-lane roadways anywhere. As a result, my legs felt as if they were going to fall apart long before I'd reached the eastern edge of Ohio.

The blisters disappeared--more or less--after the second day out, but then it seemed that something else painful would torment each day. If it wasn't the knees, it would be an ankle or perhaps my back.

After about 70 miles, I had the good sense to lighten my pack by about 25 pounds. So many items that I had thought would be indispensable suddenly didn't seem so important anymore. Back to Bethel, via UPS, went such things as cooking gear, the tent, my jacket, and all the fishing tackle. My poor back and knees hurt so much I even contemplated ridding myself of my sleeping bag. And yet I held back on the sleeping bag, because I knew I couldn't count on having someone putting me up every night.

And, sure enough, two nights later my decision about needing the sleeping bag proved to be right.

I was in a particularly lonely stretch of back-hill country, in the middle of Ohio's poorest county. It was raining, cold, windy, and dark, when I finally decided to call it quits for the day. Although there were no farmhouses to be seen on the surrounding hills in that part of Vinton County, I spotted an abandoned church about a quarter of a mile off the road.

Carefully I crossed a flooded filed to the dilapidated building and stepped even more gingerly into its black and musty interior. All day I had been warned by strangers not to stop in the county, for it was said to be a violent place due to its 21 percent unemployment and its pervasive poverty.

Adjoining the church was a cemetery and several of the wildest, deadest trees I'd ever seen. Needlesstosay, I hardly slept a wink. All night I imagined I heard ghouls and murdererous thieves creeping up to me across the old floor boards.

In the gray morning light, however, I was still in one piece. Much of the noise I'd heard during the night had been little more than tree branches scraping the tin roof, or rats scurrying through the litter piles in the room's corners.

Furthermore, as the days passed I found the people of that part of Ohio to be extremely friendly and compassionate, even though they were indeed very poor. Although the homes in that part of Appalachia oftentimes looked lifeless, the inhabitants actually had hearts of gold. This was especially true of the very poorest.

Many of the homes I was invited into didn't have plumbing. Nearly all were heated by wood-burning stoves or by coal. And yet the treatment I received was quite kingly.

When I did reach Athens, after nine days and 140 miles of walking, I had made a lot of friends and learned again just how helpful my fellow Americans can be.

Steven

Posted by Steven Newman at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hillsboro, Ohio
April 4, 1983

Dear Folks,

Only three days into the walk, and the kindness of strangers has been incredible. It helps me to forget the physical pain.

When blisters and sore back muscles become unbearable, someone drives up or comes out of a house to help. Most have read newspaper stories of my walk around the world or have seen it on Cincinnati television. People's eagerness to help never ceases to surprise me.

The first day I signed autographs, waved at a hundred honking autos, ate brownies and cookies handed to me by farm wives, and drank a dozen cups of tea.

One man pulled over and handed me $10 to buy another pair of shoes later on. Then a woman drove up with a carload of children. They gave me sandwiches and lemonade. But perhaps the most surprising gift of all was from the young lady who pulled her car over to the side of the road and jumped out and gave me a big kiss. Now. I ask you, what did I do to deserve that?

The first night I stayed in Mt. Orab, Ohio, with the family of an unemployed auto factory worker. The second night I slept on a living room floor in Fayetteville.

Easter was cold and rainy and, by that evening, absolutely miserable. The owner of a tiny Tastee Freeze in Hoagland recognized me and invited me inside for a Big T Burger and fries. His kindness and the food prodded me on down the road another mile, where I found an old barn with a clean dirt floor and a roof that didn't leak. Wearily, I peeled off my soaked jeans, my shirt, and my socks. Then I crawled into my sleeping bag, every muscle in my body feeling old and stiff. All I could think was: In three days I've only gone 50 miles...50 long, painful miles! How am I ever going to make the other 14,950 miles?

Then I slipped into one of the deepest sleeps I've ever known.

I know the miles will come faster and easier once my feet and muscles begin to match my enthusiasm for this walk. These factors, along with the kindness of others, will help me get down the road.

Steven

Posted by Steven Newman at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bethel, Ohio
March 22,1983

Dear Folks,

In nearly every man and woman dwells a Sinbad, a spirit which forever longs to explore the unknown and to experience adventure in its rawest forms.

I am no different. In a few days I will take my first steps into an adventure which has dominated my imagination since early childhood--walking around the world.

This walk is something I can't deny myself, for I have an insatiable desire to know more about the world. I have made sacrifices to be able to follow this dream. But ahead of me are three to five years of joys, lessons, mysteries, and perils of the likes of which only a small percentage of men and women in history have experienced. I will cross 21 countries, 15,000+ miles of deserts, jungles, mountains, rivers, and farmlands.

My trek will take me across the USA, the British Isles, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. If I somehow survive the elements, bandits, dangerous animals, and loneliness awaiting me, I may become the only man to have ever circled the world alone on foot.

However, I'm not out to set a record. I just seek to appease the Sinbad in me. I hope that through these letters I write to you, your imagination will be rekindled, and together we will rediscover a world as filled with romance, beauty, kindness, and adventure as the one we have read existed in the days of Marco Polo or Sir Francis Drake.

Steven

Posted by Steven Newman at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)