[pct-l] Introduction

["Peter Haskell" <pchaskell@hotmail.com>]

I'm finding these intros interesting, so here goes.

I'll celebrate my 60th birthday in February, which amazes me since I 
mentally and emotionally feel about 13.  After living in Germany for 
four years (three as an intelligence office in the Army), I've had two 
careers: I was a librarian, and later a library administrator, at 
Cornell and other academic institutions.  In 1981, I left Frankin & 
Marshall College (where I was Director of Libraries); in 1982, I moved 
to Houston and started to build a practice as an organization 
development consultant, returning to school (Pepperdine U.) to get an 
MSOD on my 50th birthday.  I've since developed a practice doing group 
facilitation (I do a fair amount of that at Shell Oil and I love the 
work).  

When I was at Colgate University, I attended the NOLS Expedition Leader 
Program and one January ran a winter wilderness survival program in the 
Adirondacks.  I planned it and then hired Joe Jastrab (who has since 
written a book on the vision quest) to lead us.  It was one of the 
highlights of my life.  I later returned to the Wind River Range for a 
two-week trek--the longest I've ever been out.

In 1981, I met my now wife, a cosmopolitan lady who associates the woods 
with dangerous guerillas (she was brought up in Guatemala).  I 
essentially hung up my hiking boots.  Last year, in what is an example 
of what I'm told Freud referred to as "the return of the repressed," I 
started reading about all sorts of expeditions, starting with the 
terrific The Long Walk (Rawicz).  Since then, I've (I guess you'd call 
it) "obsessed" on thru-hiking the PCT.  

But there are a few catches: I've got Parkinson's disease, which slows 
me down; I've really never hiked very far; my wife is incredulous; my 
retirement income, should I tap into it, is modest (and I'm digging out 
of debt); and I have a number of wear-and-tear physical complaints, like 
sore feet and sometime back problems.  Combine these with my sense, 
after reading Jardine, Ross, et al. that this truly would be an insane 
venture for me to attempt.  Despite these circumstances, I'm cautiously 
optimistic that I will be on the trail, if not in 1999, then in 2000.  
Stay tuned--and keep sharing your wisdom.  I appreciate your 
partnership.   

Peter "Powerful Tiger" Haskell, in Houston [Powerful Tiger is my New 
Warrior name]


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