Whispering Pines Trail and Pine Plantation Trail, King's Gap, May 2014

At the entrance to King's Gap Environmental Education Center is the Pines Day Use Area. Its the sole flat area in the park, and it holds two short trails, the paved Whispering Pines and the longer grassy Pine Plantation. As the names indicate, these are I walked both trails, which total a mile, before leaving the park during my recent trip to the Michaux State Forest. It was late afternoon and I was alone. The sound of my boots on the ground and the birds were all I heard, as I was surrounded by the smell of the pines and the light filtered through them. Although these trails have no technical challenges, no elevation changes, no vistas or waterfalls, I found my hike here to be as wonderful as any I've been on. A hike doesn't have to be busy or long to be fulfilling. Nor does a hiker have to do things to be filled.

Lake Jean, Ricketts Glen State Park, April 2014

After my hike on the Highland Trail but before setting up camp I visited Lake Jean and spent a few minutes along its shores. There is a short trail from the main camp road to the boat launch area, and I walked it and along the camp road looking at the lake and the sun setting in the mountains behind it. Had I known there was a trail from the camping area to the lake, I might have started from there instead of driving to the dam. I will have to hike that trail next time.

The weekend of my visit was following the 450th birthday of William Shakespeare, and the Bard was on my mind. Watching the waves on the lake and thinking about my life I couldn't help but recall the opening lines of Sonnet 60:

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end; 
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend. "

I wondered, have I used my minutes well, as I watched the waves make towards the shores of Lake Jean. Pondering that question I left the lake, set up camp, and went to bed. 

Harpers Ferry, Murphy Farm and Bolivar Heights, April 2014

All my hikes in Harpers Ferry Easter weekend were short. But all were wonderful. I had good weather and great views. Two of the hikes were on battlefields, and I'm combining them into a single post even though they were done on separate days in separate, but close, locations.

On Saturday I walked the loop at the Murphy Farm. The two mile trail starts at the Visitors Center for the park, and aside from a moderately steep drop to cross a stream the trail is level, and for most of its length a wide crushed limestone surface. And if you are not in the mood to cross the stream or want a shorter hike there is a trailhead with parking at the farm. Highlights of the short walk were the cannons and historical marker for the Battle of Harpers Ferry, and two vistas of the Shenandoah River.


The second walk was Easter Sunday, and consisted of a mile on Bolivar Heights. Everything is "heights" around Harpers Ferry - Bolivar Heights, Maryland Heights, Loudoun Heights - because the town was built into a hillside and on a flood plain. Being located next to the river is great for transporting goods, but not helpful when defending against an army occupying high ground. There's a quip allegedly from some Civil War figure that he'd rather have to attack Harpers Ferry a dozen times than defend it once. Seeing Bolivar Heights and Murphy Farm made me think there's some truth to that witticism.

A hundred and fifty years later what was a helpful view for battle is now a marvelous vista. I walked the flat portion of the trail facing the confluence of the rivers, and as the photos show I had a great view. Like Murphy Farm the Bolivar Heights trail has canon and historical markers, but its the views that make the hike.

Manasquan Reservoir hike, March 2014

Saturday after seeing the snow geese flocks I went with my friend Pastor Chris on a walk on the trail at
Manasquan Reservoir. The reservoir has a flat, cinder trail running a little over five miles. We started from the Chestnut Point trailhead and went east around the lake. The flat and forgiving surface was kind to my injured right ankle and heel, so kind in fact that I overdid the mileage and was limping the final quarter mile to the car.

Aside from the beauty of the frozen lake, we had many birds to see. Robins, grackles, bluebirds, ducks and

swans drew Chris' attention - he is a fine wildlife photographer. I don't have the skill or the patience to get birds on the wing, so I stuck to photographing the bald eagle nest. Normally the nest is hidden by the trees, but with the foliage missing it was easily visible from the walking path and across the water. Look for the mass of sticks in the distance, slightly left of center. Chris used a high-power lens to get photos of the head of the eagle in the nest; this is as close as I could get and still keep a good image.

Our walk was a three mile out and back, and as I wrote I was sore and limping on the final stretch. However, it was worth it to photograph the sunset over the frozen reservoir. The lovely colors were literally the calm before the storm, as winter storm "Titan" would arrive 24 hour later. Titan turned into Tiny as far as snowfall totals, but it did give us a nice sunset, and some above freezing weather for our walk.

Weigh In, February 24, 2014

Due to a conflict I'm moving the weigh in ahead this week. I'm down another two pounds, to 308. I also wore a size 18 shirt for the first time since 2011. Admittedly it was more form-fitting than I like, but still, I wore it and I looked good in it, at least while standing. When sitting I was grateful I was wearing a tie.

"Who is the fat selfie-taking blogger who can wear a size 18
shirt? THIS GUY!"

While we are disclosing sizes, I'm still wearing a size 54 suit. When I was at my low weight in 2007 I could wear a 48, which is still 'big' but nowhere near the size 64 I had in the closet in 2004 and 2005. I hope to be back to those sizes by next year.

I celebrated my victories on the scale and off by continuing my rehab. I hiked three quarters of a mile, the first quarter while dressed as I was on the right, and the remaining half mile later, in casual clothes. My ankle bothers me less and less, although the dress boots I wore on the first part of the walk were more uncomfortable than my hiking shoes.

No predictions for the weight loss for the next weigh in. Having lost four pounds over the past two weeks I'm due for an flat week. However, as you can tell from the photo I could lose a pound easily by shaving. If the beard gets any longer people will think I make duck calls for a living.

Recovery hike, February 2014

My first hike after my accident was Saturday. I put in a half mile along a local road, enjoying the warmer
weather, sun, and melting snow. Although late in the day, the weather was warm enough I wore a short-sleeved shirt. I had a good time, a bit of a limp and soreness in my right ankle, but despite that I enjoyed the outdoors.

So did my camera. Any hike I can take photos like these is a good hike.

As I seem to be coming around quickly, I expect to be back to normal hiking by the first weekend in March. Crossing my fingers.....

Lehigh Greenway Rail Trail, Flagler County, Florida

(This is a guest post by my friend Sayre Kulp. Readers of A Taste For The Woods are familiar with Sayre, but for those of you who just started here, his story is a remarkable testimony of a changed life. At age 28, in 2009, he weighed over 400 pounds. He took up walking, running, weightlifting, and cycling, and dropped 160 of those pounds. You can follow Sayre's fitness life on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BulkyBullet

Sayre currently resides in Florida, and took some time to write for us about his favorite places to walk, run, and ride. )

Florida has a wealth of bike trails (most of them paved). There are a number of very long, very popular trails that draw tourists from all over, and I’m sure I’ll talk about them at some point. But right now, I’d like to clue folks in to one of the pleasant little surprises I’ve found since moving down here just over a year ago, the Lehigh Greenway Rail Trail.


The Lehigh Trail is located in Flagler County on an abandoned railroad corridor comprising 195 acres. The

railroad spur once carried cement and other materials to and from the Lehigh Portland Cement Plant in Flagler Beach. The trail connects US 1 north of Bunnell with Colbert Lane, running through the center of Palm Coast, through Graham Swamp and ending just west of the old Lehigh Portland Cement Company. Surrounded by trees for most of the way, the trail provides a safe, non-motorized way to travel among the cities of Bunnell, Flagler Beach and Palm Coast. In the 3,000-acre conservation zone of Graham Swamp the trail has elevated views of the surrounding wetlands. The trail starts with a wooden boardwalk style bridge and goes west for a couple hundred yards through the Graham Swamp Conservation Area continuing on to the old railroad bed. This is a very active wildlife area with birds, alligators, turtles, snakes, deer, otters, armadillos and ferrel pigs.


While this trail is relatively short, (only about 6 ½ miles each way), it has yielded some of the best wildlife viewing experiences I’ve had in the Sunshine State. This trail is especially good for beginners as it is flat, well paved, and offers a wide variety of scenery in a reasonably short distance. It is near the top of a short list of trails I would take visiting outdoor enthusiasts to experience.

Poole Forge, February 2014

After the Money Rocks hike we stopped at Poole Forge, one of the many iron forges preserved in the Keystone State. I'm not sure I'd call this a "hike" as much as a "walk." The distance under our feet was at most a half mile. Still, it was walking in the snow, planting our feet carefully on ice, and keeping warm as we walked around the historic site. Poole Forge Bridge, built in 1859, is a highlight of this little park, and it looked lovely amid the snow.

For more information on visiting Poole Forge, visit their website http://www.historicpooleforge.org/

Walking With Josh

 Lately I've been meeting my friend Josh for a walk on weekdays.The photo to the right shows him slogging through the snow at Welkinweir last week. Josh looks like he's on a mission in the photo, and he is - its to make himself less of a man. He recently accomplished the goal of never having his weight start with a 4 again. Now to have it never start with a 3.

Due to the nature of our respective employments, we both often find mornings free, and so we can fit in a walk of a couple of miles. Welkinweir was a first for Josh, as he usually prefers paved surfaces. For example, the Interpretive Trail at Black Rock Sanctuary, which we visited earlier in the month. Josh, like me, has a sedentary job, and getting into the outdoors is a great change of pace for him. And I get to show off some of my favorite locations.

The best part of walking with Josh isn't the exercise, or the scenery, or the conversation, although there's all of that too. Its seeing the changes in him taking place, slowly, like water dripping on stone. Walking helps both of us, but it helps me by letting me participate, in a small way, in his success. It gets boring cheering yourself on; its always exciting rooting for your friends. And I'm rooting for Josh every step of the way.

2014 Pennsylvania Farm Show, Harrisburg, PA

I'd had a horrible week. Canceled plans due to the cold weather, a burst pipe flooding my living room, the heater going out, discovering I've added eight pounds over the holidays, and turning 48 put me in a bad mood. And being indoors drives me nuts anyway. So when a friend suggested a trip to the Pennsylvania Farm Show on Saturday, I jumped.

Continuing my theme of distress, I'd had only four hours of sleep and a queasy stomach when I met my friend at 9 AM for our carpool to Harrisburg. I hate driving in and around our state capitol, as the roads are a mess of interchanges and I invariably take the wrong one. I wasn't driving, so that wasn't a problem this trip. And despite the heavy rain and traffic, we were soon enough at the offsite parking lot and on the bus shuttle.

The Farm Show is the largest in the United States, drawing 585 thousand visitors last year over eight days. The show celebrates agriculture, which brings more than five billion dollars into Pennsylvania's economy. And while there are more than a thousand animals on display, there are a range of exhibits for all tastes.... including fans of butter sculpture, apparently.

 I enjoyed the show, but all the walking around and the heat eventually made me as tired as Passion the cow. I had to sit down for a few minutes and rest outside an overheated exhibition hall. Adding in some walking before and after I hoofed over three miles that day. I felt better after drinking some water and later having a "Mapleade" - lemonade sweetened with Pennsylvania maple syrup. For the record, mapleade is a very odd flavor - like lemonade but lacking the tartness of lemons.

 While the macro is what's celebrated at the Farm Show, its the micro I enjoyed - the small items, like the displays by young people, the terrariums, the model gardens... I could do without the crowds of people, the schlock vendors, and the endless booths selling 'heavy' food.... although had my stomach been more settled that morning I might have indulged in a trout sandwich or the deep fried cheese cubes.

My favorite exhibit at the farm show was the display of Fred Foster's dioramas of farming in in the 1950s. For the past dozen years Foster has exhibited his models at the Indiana County Fair, and this is the first time he's shown his models here. The bridge in the photo is modeled on the Trusel Bridge over Crooked Creek in Indiana County. The bridge was closed to vehicle traffic in 1990, and is the shortest of the county's four covered spans.





Despite some complaints and a bad week, I had a good time at the Farm Show. Its always nice to be with friends and meet new people. Even if the new person is a mushroom.

Flight 93 Memorial, Shanksville, PA, July 2012

My trip to Ligonier and western Pennsylvania in 2012 ended with a visit to the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville. I'd planned on stopping on the way to Ligonier a week earlier, but I was running late and arrived after the memorial has closed for the day.

The entrance on Route 30 was clearly marked, and I had no trouble finding it. The road leading to the memorial is long, which allowed me time to reflect on what I would see, and remember what I had seen nearly 11 years ago. This seemed accidental, as the reason the road was so long was that the crash site was far from any road.

Distance, however, was built into the memorial design. After parking I visited a plaza with displays on the men and women of the flight, the events of September 11, the counterattack on the terrorists in the cockpit, and the crash. I passed through a small partially enclosed seating area and began a long walk to the memorial wall. Along the paved path is a small wall, with notches cut into it for people to lay tributes. I passed flowers, notes, watches, coins and patches and medallions as I walked towards the wall.






The wall itself was imposing, a series of marble slabs joined together into a continuous ribbon of stone. Each of the slabs has a name of a passenger or crew member of United Flight 93. From a distance the snaking line of white marble induced a hush in people walking towards it. I didn't hear anyone speak above a whisper as I approached the wall. I know some people have criticized the design of the memorial as lacking a heroic element, but I'm not sure a conventional statue or monument would have had the intended effect.



The emerging tradition at the wall is to photograph every name. The boy in the photo and the man cut off to the right are doing just that. The boy at the time of the attacks was probably too young to understand what was happening.  He's obviously learned about 9/11 and has respect for the sacrifice made on Flight 93. I've seen some boorish behavior at historic sites, including people sitting on gravestones at Gettysburg, so I was heartened by what I saw here.

As I returned to my car I stopped at the seating area and wrote out  a message on one of the cards provided. The message to the right isn't mine, but one I agree with. We honor those who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and those who came to save lives after, but the people who fought terrorism that day lie in a field in rural Pennsylvania. They weren't soldiers; they didn't intended to fight when they boarded the plane. But when they had to, they fought.




America is a country built on ideas and ideals. Those can fall and change at any time, which is why they, and America, need to be defended. Whatever happens to the United States in the future, in a Pennsylvania field there will be a patch of ground that will always be American.

Urban Hike, Ohio City, Cleveland, Ohio, July 2013

I'm not sure of the definition of the word "hike", or how it differs from "walk." And in the case of a so-called urban hike, the distinction is even less. That said, even though I'll never be a fan of cities, they are 'outdoors' and such a walk, especially with friends, can be fun.

Last month in Ohio I met my friends Aaron and Matty for one such hike. We traveled through the Ohio City section of Cleveland, across the Cuyahoga River from the downtown. Our first stop was the most impressive, the West Side Market. Like Philadelphia's Reading Terminal, the West Side Market uses an old rail station building. The building is impressive now and must have been very grand when it was used by the railroad. One end of the main building has an observation walkway, and I took advantage of it for photos.

Matty is still recovering from his car accident last October, and the hike was kept to a little more than a mile to not stress him. We stopped for a few minutes at a bike shop to drool over Brooks saddles and get out of the heat. I can't imagine ever riding a tall bike, and just looking at it made me dizzy.

As I was walking around I began to get a feeling of deja-vu. At first I thought it was because I saw hipsters riding on fixies and was reminded of Philly, but then as we returned to the West Side Market I realized I'd been here before. In 2007 I visited Cleveland and rented a bike from nearby Ohio City Bicycle Co-op, and rode on a Bike to Work day event. Our turn around point was the little park opposite the West Side Market. Back then I was still trying to change from an indoor person to an outdoor one. Standing across the street from the market, I reflected on how far I'd come. Then I came to Ohio to research in a library. Now I came to be outside.

The hike ended with a disgusting spectacle. My friends were tempted by an offering at the market, and tried head cheese. I was revolted by the mere idea of such a product, but my companions delighted in eating slices of it in front of me. Still, I was lucky. There were items even more disgusting they could have eaten.

Quail Hollow State Park, Hartsville, Ohio, July 2013

The closest I came to an off day during my July trip to Ohio was a rainy Monday. I used the rainy day to advantage, getting a haircut, stocking up on drinks, filling the tank, and exploring parks between showers. I've written about Wingfoot Lake State Park, and my mile of walking looking at the Goodyear blimp moored across the water. That same day I visited another nearby state park, Quail Hollow.

Wingfoot Lake, as I wrote, owes its status as a state park to the generosity of a large corporation. Quail Hollow is a gift of a family. The 700 acres of land, the rock and herb gardens, and the manor were passed down through the Stewart family, chairman of the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown Railroad. In 1975 the Stewarts sold their home and land to the State of Ohio for half its market value, and Quail Hollow joined the state park system.

The park features a nature center in the manor buildings, but unfortunately it was closed when I arrived. My car was alone in the parking lot, and no one seemed to be around. The trails were open, however, and I began to explore. The rock garden was undergoing restoration, but the floral and herb gardens were open. I enjoy the decoration Nature performs, but Man can do a heck of a job too. The gardens were amazing, and a tribute to the volunteers at the local gardening clubs who come in to keep them in shape.

Between the rain and the mosquitoes I kept my walk to under a mile. I enjoyed myself at a park I wish I'd spent more time at. My haircut could have waited; had I arrived earlier in the day the nature center would have been open, and I'd have a better idea of the best hike that afternoon. I have to add Quail Hollow to my "get back to" list.

Encounters with Animals: Seagull Alpha at Kinzua Dam, September 2012

I've seen bears, rattlesnakes, eagles, and hawks, but I've never been attacked by them. Alpha was different.

In September 2012 I spent a rainy day exploring part of north central Pennsylvania with my friend Judy. As part of our travels we drove to Kinzua Dam and the lake it created. The dam itself is an impressive piece of engineering, spanning the Allegheny River with one of the largest structures of its kind east of the Mississippi. Canoeing on the lake is a wish I never manage to get fulfilled, sadly, even though I've been in the area a few times.

Canoeing wasn't in our plans today either. Time was short and I was still fatiguing far too soon. So we walked and took photos. I must have tripped some invisible security alarm at the dam, for no sooner did I take out the camera and start snapping away than I was accosted by security.

The bird didn't say a word. Being a seagull and not a parrot, I wasn't surprised. But I was shocked at how seriously the avian agent took its job. The sign at the dam's gated, secure area said "Force Protection Level: Alpha", so I took that to be the seagull's name. Alpha shot me a dirty look and made gull noises at me. Not planning to trespass and assuming the gull would understand my intentions, I stood my ground taking photos. And then this happened.

Judy kept her distance, documenting the encounter. Not wanting to be strafed by the gull again, I retreated. As I did I had a bad flashback to Sea Isle City, New Jersey three decades ago, and my youngest brother getting hit by a rock he'd thrown to a passing seagull. That gull was just doing beach patrol. Who knew what this bird was carrying? I wasn't going to find out. 

Kinzua Dam is worth visiting. And worth photographing. Just keep in mind security watches over it from the air. Respect them. Don't fall afoul of the fowl.

Wingfoot Lake State Park, Suffield, Ohio

I refused to stay in during the one genuinely rainy day I experienced in Ohio. During the worst of the downpours I was inside my car or a building, but in between I was outside. One place I visited was the newest Ohio State Park, Wingfoot Lake. 

Located outside Akron, Wingfoot Lake has an interesting history. While American parks celebrate nature and the outdoors, their history is tied to the history of business. And often its not the Manicheistic struggle between 'good' Nature and 'evil' Man the media trumpets to us.

Wingfoot Lake State Park is on land previously owned by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, headquartered in nearby Akron. The lake and surrounding property were purchased in 1916 for the construction of airships for the US Navy. While the airplane was a weapon with potential, the airship was also of keen interest to the military, and for the next five decades Goodyear constructed both blimps and the US Navy's two dirigible airships, USS Macon and USS Akron. Goodyear's first corporate blimp was launched in 1925.

As the the navy's need for blimps declined following World War II Goodyear found itself with lots of vacant wooded land near their Wingfoot Lake facility. Since much of the workforce of the company was located near Akron, they opened Wingfoot Lake Park as a recreational facility for their employees. Park attendance peaked in the 1980s at 100 thousand visitors a year. But in 2006 Goodyear closed the park as fewer and fewer visitors used it each year. The state of Ohio purchased 600 some acres, and opened 121 acres along the lake as a State Park in 2009. 

The day I visited I was the only person their aside from park staff and a fisherman. I walked the paved pathways that ran along the lake, ducking into a picnic shelter or under trees as the rain waxed and waned. The lake is the main attraction at the park, and even in the rain it was pretty. I walked about a mile on the pavement, following the shore of the lake past a small marsh filled with frogs. Had it been a sunny day, the park would have picnickers and boats would have been on the lake. Now it was just the frogs, the birds, and me. 

The boaters and picnickers weren't the only ones affected by the weather. When Goodyear closed their employee park and sold the land, they kept their airship facility on the far side of the lake. There are four Goodyear blimps, three in the US and one in China, and the Spirit of Goodyear is based at Wingfoot Lake. Looking across the lake, one can see the hanger, the mooring mast, and, this day, the Spirit of Goodyear. The weather kept the airship grounded, and the Spirit of Goodyear floated at its mast, drifting as the wind blew. Yes, its an advertising icon, and some might object to seeing that on a hike or park visit, but the blimp is also a piece of history, much like a steam train. And floating across the lake the big balloon was an example of corporate 'good citizenship' as I walked the pathways at an Ohio State Park. 

Matty Returns!

In a previous posting, I wrote about my friend Matty, a man who lost two hundred some pounds, lost his focus on weight loss, and almost lost his life in an auto accident. At the end of that posting, I said I was going to run a 5K with Matty in Michigan. Well, it seems the man got a little practice in yesterday. It took him nearly an hour and a half, but he completed the Zeeland Zoom 5K Run/Walk last evening.

Society tells super-obese people they are victims and they can't change themselves. Matty is changing. After his accident the doctors told him he may never walk again. He's walking.  And for a brief period of time Matty thought he'd never return to the active life he led.

But he's returned....

The Wild Side: Fern Cliff Peninsula, Ohiopyle State Park, August 2010

This is one of the most photographed waterfalls in Pennsylvania. 

But its shot from the 'wrong' side. You can see the observation platforms in the photo. Obviously I should have been on the other side of the cataracts with the thousands of other visitors.  That's the side of the river with the boat launches, and the visitor center, and the pizza place, and market..... In other words, the Ohiopyle State Park everyone visits. But just across the bridge, accessed from a parking lot or the Great Allegheny Passage trail, is a wild side to Ohiopyle. The Fern Cliff Peninsula is the Ohiopyle no one visits, and in many ways its the best part of the park. A stick of land jutting out into and partly surrounded by the Youghiogheny River, the peninsula has one of the best short hikes in the state. When I hiked it on a late afternoon in August 2010, I saw only one other person during the slightly more than two miles that passed under my boots. 

The trail I hiked was less rocky than most of the trails in Penn's Woodlands. The rockiest portion was near the falls. To get the photos above and below I had to walk out onto the rocks at the edge of the cascade. The river flow was lower than normal due to the drought conditions; I'd hate to imagine what the river and falls would look like in spring after the snow melt. 

Just downriver of the falls, I saw the only other man on the peninsula. Well, he wasn't quite ON the peninsula. But I'm guessing he had to swim  or wade over to his fishing perch from the peninsula side, if only because the distance was shorter. Not that I'd swim within 200 feet of the falls, or swim with a fishing pole. Or for that matter swim in my underwear. Then again, its Westsylvania. Things are different here. 

As you get further away from the falls, the trail takes you through a forest of pine and hardwood. But you are never very far from the water. The sound of the river crashes around you as you walk, following it as it drops 90 feet rounding the peninsula. It drowns out the tread of your boots on pine needles and dead leaves.  As I walked through the woods, I thanked the men and women who saved the peninsula, and the whole of Ohiopyle State Park, from becoming a vacation resort decades ago. As I finished my hike, I kicked myself for having visited Ohiopyle three times before and never once taking a walk on the wild side. I know it won't me my last time at Fern Cliff Peninsula. 

Meeting Matty: Walking in Red Bank, NJ

Following my hike with Chris in Bristol on the Saturday morning before Easter, I drove to Red Bank, New Jersey to meet the man who saved my life.

In December 2005 I was over 400 pounds, unable to walk a city block without stopping to rest, and had just spent the night in the hospital under observation because of chest pains. While there was nothing wrong with my heart, I was so weak the hospital had to inject me with a drug to simulate the effects of exercise instead of giving me the standard cardiac stress test. I went home with the knowledge something had to change, but not knowing how to change it. Weight loss seemed as much a death sentence as obesity.

After making the usual gestures toward weight loss every super-obese person does when they want to delude themselves, in January 2006 I was searching the Internet for something, anything, that would tip the scale for me. And on a newsgroup I found the postings of a man, posting under the name "Matty", who was nearly 500 pounds and was losing most of his excess. When most of the weight loss information I found was restrictive, and emphasized denying yourself - you can't have this, you can't have that - Matty's posts were about giving himself things. Small things such as pleasure, joy, happiness - things I found missing in my life. I searched through all his postings going back to his appointment to see a surgeon through his rejection of a cutting solution and his taking charge. When he wrote how happy and satisfied he was being able to mow his lawn I was hooked and a changed man. I lost nearly 40 pounds the first month......and 160 sixteen months later.

Matty and I became friends thanks to the Internet. He lives half a country away, so we never met in person. We kept in touch through each other's success and setbacks. He lost 200 pounds and took up running; I became a hiker and cyclist. We both maintained our weight loss, more or less - some times better than others.

For a super-obese person who loses weight, its not just a matter of calories in and calories out. The bad thinking that leads a person to grow to that size has to be changed as well. And that's a struggle harder than resisting a doughnut. In my case I never fully resolved my stress-release relationship with food, and that combined with my deteriorating knees led to some regain. I can't say what led to Matty's small regains, but he was struggling too.

And then the car accident came. In October of last year my friend was nearly killed while driving. And he nearly had his left leg amputated before his surgeon decided that if you put enough metal into the limb it's repairable. Matty was bedridden for months, and spent more time in a wheelchair after his surgery than I did after mine. None of this helped his weight loss.

By March he was cleared to drive and so Matty planned a weekend trip with his son to a comic book convention near Red Bank, NJ. We set aside Saturday afternoon for a walking tour of the town.

As I drove out across New Jersey I wondered what our meeting would be like. I owed this man so much. Being a writer, I'm a creature of emotion. But when I stepped out of the car at the Marina in Red Bank there was no emotion other than friendship - Hi and a handshake. We had met before, just not in person.

Red Bank is a pretty little town. In 2007 my first ever bike tour was an overnight to Red Bank, and I had those thoughts in my head as well when I walked with Matty. We strolled at the waterfront before venturing downtown for dinner and a walk.

My friend did very well walking as far as he did with a cane. We kept the hiking to a mile tops so not to tire Matty or cause him pain in his repaired leg. But as we walked I reminded him "The doctors told you that you'd never walk again. What are you doing now?" We discussed our plans, Matty's return to running, my hiking and riding. I think it was clear to both of us that neither of us fell or failed in our life changes many years ago. We only discovered, and are discovering, that its a lifelong joy. We can succeed as long as we want to. And we both want to. 

I'm going to Michigan, Matty's home state, for a 5k run in March 2014. Guess who is going to run with me?