by Wanda Shirk, President, KTA Board of Directors
Positive thinking was ingrained in my family. I was about seven years old when my insurance-salesman dad went to a seminar and came back preaching “PMA”—positive mental attitude. It became a way of life. We were to look for the good in people and praise them and look for the good in life and enjoy it. If you asked my dad, “How’re you today?” he would always answer enthusiastically, “Tremendous, Tremendous, Tremendous!” It usually came in triplicate, and he became well known as Mr. Tremendous. Ask my businessman brother the same question, and he’ll probably answer, “Outstanding!” or maybe “Livin’ the Dream!”
Spending a week on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in September, I thought of that. How—what—was I doing? I was Living the Dream, yes, indeed! For years I dreamed of this trail; now I was on the trail, living the Dream—every day, even if it brought rocks or rain. I’m also Living the Dream when I go to a trail just 10 miles from my home, in Potter County, for a 6- or 7-mile loop hike in Susquehannock State Forest. In a world full of beautiful places, Pennsylvania’s hundreds of miles of trails are a dream as good as any other.
Living the Dream starts with having a dream! The lyricist in the musical South Pacific asks, “Happy talk, keep talkin’ happy talk. Talk about things you’d like to do. You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?”
“Dream the Trail, Live the Dream,” I say. Making it happen takes planning. The friend who took the cameo photo of me called it “Wanda: Wine and Chocolate,” but red wine and dark chocolate weren’t the real source of my smile in that picture. Look at what’s in front of me and you’ll see AT maps, with the guidebook on my right. That’s what was making me happy—the Dream!
Short hikes or long ones, I love every day on the trail in the woods. I spent a lot of time last year dreaming and planning hikes on not only the A.T., but also the Standing Stone Trail, a fourth trip around the Susquehannock Trail, and many little loop hikes in my Potter County. As all of us learn, the physical action of a hike is only part of the experience. Lots of enthusiasm goes into the dreaming; lots of mental work goes into the planning that makes great hikes possible. Living the Dream is not a mindless adventure.
In our hemisphere and latitude, a new calendar year starts with short, cold days and long, cold nights that are great for dreaming and planning. As gardeners ponder, drool over, and order from their seed catalogs, we ponder, drool over, and order our maps and guidebooks in January. I’ve already ordered my maps and guidebooks for 3 trails.
How about you? Dream the Trail—Live the Dream in 2015!