Austin Kaseman "Noland Trail Encounter"

I wanted to write a separate blog post about an encounter I had with an old man on the trail. It all happened right after we were told to walk by ourselves for a little while. I was enjoying my walk and remembered my roommate had said he wanted to sit in (or walk in in this case) on class today because he hadn't been on the trail in a while. He had also just read the interesting Captains Log article on Redick and wanted to experience one of his classes. Unfortunately my roommate had prior commitments during our walk so he couldn't make it, but I wanted to text to let him now how beautiful the trail looked and how great the walk was. As I was doing so, an old man on a run approached me from the opposite direction as I was texting my friend. As he passed me, he yelled "Throw that damn thing away!".

I have a few different reactions to this, because it definitely interrupted my flow of enjoying the walk. My first reaction was to mind your own business (with some vulgarity included). After he passed though, I began to analyze the situation. He was obviously passionate about the trail and nature itself, which I admire, especially because he appeared to be in his late 60's running a 5 mile trail at a quick pace. I agree with his mindset that people shouldn't be distracted by technology when experiencing nature. He probably thought I was some miserable kid who was forced on the trail and was trying to occupy myself with technology, but this was not the case, which is what bugged me about his impulsive comment. The reality was that I was trying to communicate with a friend to let them know how great the trial was, and was trying to recruit him to come out and do the same thing the old man and I were doing.

The impulsive comment pissed me off, although I do sympathize with his preconceived notion that I was an uninterested kid, bored on the trail. I do wish the man would learn to keep his mouth shut, as he was extremely quick to judge. My feelings are still mixed between being mad at his comment and agreeing that I shouldn't even have worried about communicating with my friend. Either way I felt I should write it down for our blogs.