I'd like to think that rubbing shoulders with a famous writer stimulated me to begin writing. Before I started memoir writing in 2002 and before the year of his publication of his nonfiction treatise "On Writing" in 2000, my wife and I found ourselves sitting next to Stephen King at a little country store and restaurant in Lovell, Maine, near Kezar Lake, where he owned a cottage. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 20, Friends Like This, from my memoir "Taking a Walk" (2022).

"When I started reading books by Stephen King, I was impressed with his characterization of children and how their bonds were built on laughter and compassion for each other. Several years ago in Maine, my wife and I, by shear chance, sat at the same lunch counter right next to the man, a short time before his terrible accident as a pedestrian on a local highway. He was having breakfast and an orange soda, voraciously reading three newspapers at his side. He says in his recent non-fiction book, "On Writing", written after his accident, that you can't write if you don't read. We were having lunch. I kept silent during the meal, but as he got up to leave, we nodded, and I told him quietly that I enjoyed his work. He graciously thanked me. The people there all knew him. He was a frequent visitor to this local restaurant and country store. It made me feel good."

As he was paying his breakfast bill, a little old lady came up to him. Paraphrasing, she said, "Mr. King, I have a story for you. It's true - - - and it's a Mystery!"

Being a local, he obviously knew her. Graciously, he replied, "Gladys (I believe that was her name), Stop by anytime. I'd love to hear it."

The photo is me in my back brace June 21, 2022, still recuperating from spinal fusion surgery in March. I'm holding my copy of "On Writing" by Stephen King.

Collateral Damage: Consequences and Complications

In battle we have collateral damages, for example civilians killed in an air strike on military positions. From surgery, we have post-surgical consequences and complications including pain, loss of mobility, tissue swelling, potential blood clots, and with narcotic pain control, the loss of alert function and the side effect of constant constipation. You get the message, limited mobility, loss of conditioning, frustration, and worse of all for this avid but aging hiker, depression and putting hiking on hold. That's the biggest frustration of all. I haven't hiked in almost five months, trapped in a virtual cage created by surgery and the recuperation process.

The attached photo shows this frustrated hiker, trapped in a real cage, on my last hike. I guess you would call it an old cattle guard with barbed wire fencing extending to either side, allowing people (hikers) to pass through a chain link labyrinth, but too tight for cows to fit through. It's on the Metacomet Trail, south of Orchard Road, in Berlin, CT.

Hiking is more than hiking. It's a process involving three key repeating steps:

The Hiking Cycle

1. Planning

2. Hiking

3. Reminiscing

followed by planning, hiking, and reminiscing, etc. an endless source of fulfillment and enjoyment.

I remember in my early hiking days after a long backpack weekend, of driving home tired and bone deep sore, thinking that I wouldn't want to repeat that trip again. After a day, my mind, which was not tired, would be active, thinking about what I had just done, and planning the next hike. The aching body would just need a few days to catch up with my aspirations.

My last day hike was over 4 months ago in early December 2021. Shortly after, I was scheduled for back surgery in January. That was postponed for six weeks because of a Covid Omicron variant surge in Connecticut and lack of surgical support staff at the hospital. My new surgery date was late February, the day after my eighty-fourth birthday. That surgery was followed four weeks later by emergency surgery in mid-March. This week will mark 6 weeks post-surgery and a slow recovery process to fuse five vertebrae in my low back and the wearing of a back for three months until late June.

So how is it going in the hiking department and the hiking cycle? I have graduated out of a walker back to my hiking poles. Last week, I hiked (high risk) out to my back yard. My best excursion was today, a tenth of a mile on the road around a small block. I'm planning to up that to a quarter mile by next week. That is a lot to reminisce about. Ha. Ha.

The big challenge is to increase my distance, but under controlled conditions mostly on the road, I dare not take a spill which rules out any kind of uneven terrain including roots, rocks, steep inclines, and declines. Every step I take is with a lot of care and pre-thinking about what I'm doing. As my distance increases, my confidence level also improves.

My long-term plans will have to wait until the brace comes off. I expect any kind of extended woods hiking will be in September 2022 which will be 9 months since I last hiked. We are booked for a week in Maine and Acadia National Park. I do spend a lot of time reminiscing, especially when my son asks me a question about past trips in the mountains. It's a far cry from my hay-days of hiking, but time does fly when I'm having fun thinking of much hiking has affected my life. My aspirations and achievements have been modified with age and mobility, but the process and hiking cycle remains the same.