Isaac Fitzgerald returns to dreary Massachusetts with heavy drinking, frequent praying, no job, and a painful breakup as he nears forty. Living with difficult family circumstances, he feels he must act quickly or face further decline. He chooses to walk the entire Johnny Appleseed Trail in North Central Massachusetts, carrying minimal gear and even borrowing a ride from his father. He arrives at a visitors’ center near a large apple sculpture, only to find the trail has no real trailhead and functions as a tourist trap. Stuck far from home, he continues anyway, motivated by Johnny Appleseed’s connection to his childhood area and by the shared qualities of prayer and walking: repetition, solitude, and temporary relief from dangerous thoughts.
"In a way, prayer and walking have a bit in common. A repetition. A solitude. They're both ways of getting out of one's own heador at least away from one's more perilous thoughts, if only for a little while. (Drinking, come to think of it, has a si"
"With a tent, a tarp, hiking boots, even a ride snagged from his dad, he finds himself at the Johnny Appleseed Visitors' Center next to "'The Big Apple of New England,' a ten-foot-tall red apple that is 'the largest apple sculpture of its kind in all of New England.'" Looking for the trailhead and wondering how many other big apple sculptures there could be, he soon discovers there is no trailhead because there is no trail. It's all just a tourist trap."
"Isaac Fitzgerald is in a sorry state. He's been drinking a lot and praying a lot. He's about to turn 40, he's not married, he's had a bad break up, has no job and, worst of all, he's back in the middle of dreary Massachusetts visiting his family. His let's say difficult father, and his mother, who's dealing with mental illness, still live in the old family farmhouse taking care of Fitzgerald's centenarian grandmother."
"So what does he decide to do? Walk the entirety of the Johnny Appleseed Trail of North Central Massachusetts, naturally. And so begins Fitzgerald's new book, American Rambler. With a tent, a tarp, hiking boots, even a ride snagged from his dad, he finds himself at the Johnny Appleseed Visitors' Center next to "'The Big Apple of New England,' a ten-foot-tall red apple that is 'the largest apple sculpture of its kind in all of New England.'""
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]