Day 6: The Right Way

TABER STATE FOREST, DE —

March 30, 2024

Day 6:

Growing up from late grade school through the end of high school, I was known as the basketball guy, particularly the jump shot guy, but I was never the star of the team. The reasoning behind this social identity was the simple observation that I lived and breathed hoops 24/7/365, and my coaches loved me for it. I played the right way and gave every ounce of energy I had both on and off the floor.

As I’ve begun to build up a rhythm in this walk, with today being my first 15-mile day, I’ve noticed the basketball guy’s voice again, and he’s been whispering to me between punches of endorphins to my brain various reiterations of, ‘people are more interested to know the heart than the head.’

As I broke out of Bridgeville this morning, I came across a worn basketball propped by the universe along a harvested corn crop I was using as an impromptu sidewalk. In Pavlovian fashion: Zach see ball, basketball guy see Zach.

From that moment on, the sum of my Saturday was spent “in the lab,” a sports term referring to the concept of thoroughly refining one’s game through rigorous repetition and red-lining adaptation.

My game today is heel-to-toe and my lab the road.

As I approached my speculative campsite for the evening at the 15’s end, a plaid-dawning, silver-haired gentleman named Don Barker pulled up alongside me in a hatchback the same shade as his beard.

“Where you headed? You’re the second guy I’ve seen out here!” he said (the other must’ve been Leif or Matt).

I told him the story about Greg and what I was doing big picture. He listened with undivided attention.

“I’m a backpacker, too,” he said.

Then, he told me the story of his hikes along the Sierras and of his upcoming adventure to the Himalayas with his daughter, reminding me of Sean Penn’s photojournalistic search for the elusive Himalayan snow leopard in Ben Stiller’s rendition of The Extraordinary Life of Walter Mitty.

He asked to take a picture with me, and I was humbled, as I was about to request the same.

With an inner smile, basketball guy whispered to me, ‘see? It’s never too late to play the right way again.’

The Right Way, the name of the road I passed not even a quarter mile ahead of where the universe rolled a basketball through a cornfield into my court, seamlessly merging two timelines so directionally obvious a caveman could read the compass needle in no uncertain terms.

People are more interested in the heart than the head.