​The Sodden Surgeon (The Continuation of Appalachian Armageddon)

Schoolhouse Gap Trail

I half expected to find Neptune when I got to the bottom of the trail. It had been raining so long and so hard I was no longer hiking. I was swimming. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there was a lot of water and no escaping it. In an odd twist, I had to laugh when I realized that my bikini-clad friends whom I left up on the mountain were more appropriately dressed than I was for the current situation. I was weighed down with soaking wet jeans, a drenched backpack and boots filled to the brim with God’s bounty; while they were dancing in the rain, free as a bird, not weighed down by anything.  Ah, to be young, and dumb again.

As I recall, I mentioned a young family of a momma and daddy and two young boys sitting on a rock in the rain looking miserable and just a bit lost in my last writing. As I passed them by, I asked the dad how they were doing. He said “Oh we’re fine, we’re just waiting for the rain to stop so we can call for a ride.” I didn’t think much about that statement at the time, but it was a hint of things to come.

I worked my way up into the woods beyond the parking lot to find a little shelter from the rain and wait for Mary to pick me up, and I didn’t give what he said a second thought. After Mary arrived and I had deposited my muddy carcass in my nice new Ford pick-up, I realized that the family had vanished. Good, I thought. At least they were out of the rain. I assumed they had been rescued; but you know what they say about assuming.

As it turned out they had made the ill-conceived decision to try and walk home. For those of you who have been up in the Smokey Mountains, you probably know that to walk on the side of a mountain road on a sunny day is not a sign of high intelligence; but to walk on the side of that same road in the pouring rain is well, dumb or desperate or both.  You’ve got cars and campers and trucks and everything else going around those curves willy-nilly, and the possibility of being knocked off the mountain by an Oldsmobile is greater than you might think.

If any of you had a dad like mine then you know what I’m talking about. My father was a law abiding, measured man not given to panic or overreaction, but put him behind the wheel of a Rambler station wagon in the Smokey Mountains and he transformed into a middle-aged Richard Petty with a slight potbelly, a receding hairline, and a maniacal look in his eye that scared the wits out of his wife, and thrilled his sons no end. When a particularly sharp curved loomed and my mama hollered out “Bill!,” her tone was the oddest combination of sheer terror and begrudging admiration I have ever heard.

Well, I’m in danger of sliding off the mountain myself if I keep this up. So let me get back at it.
To continue the story, as Mary and I were driving down the hill towards Townsend, we came across this family strung out on the other side of the road walking, with Dad in front and mom bringing up the rear. Taking in their bedraggled appearance, the pouring rain and the desperate looks on their faces, Mary’s maternal juices began to flow; so she pulled over to the side of the road, a daring act in and of itself, and offered them a ride.  

While earlier in the day I had been mistaken for a messiah by a few young men wearing flip-flops simply because I carried a trail map; this entire family looked at Mary as if she was the Mother Mary herself. They were so happy and relieved at their rescue and grateful to she who rescued them.

No matter how much Mary and I insisted otherwise, the family refused to come inside the truck and instead they all piled into the back, rain notwithstanding. So with the soggy family behind us and Townsend and home before us, we commenced.

I’ll give the family this much, they were a stalwart crew. Every time I looked back to check on them, they gave me some agonized smiles and a whole host of thumbs up. You see, the rain had not abated one bit, so they were being pelted from every direction pretty good.

When after seven miles we finally arrived at Townsend, we stopped at a little store so they could dry off a bit, and it was then that we found out that they weren’t headed for Townsend. They were headed for Walland, another ten miles or so down the road.

By this time my curiosity got the best of me. So I asked the father where they were from, and he told me they were from Ocala, Florida. To further the conversation I asked him what he did for a living. He said he was an orthopedic surgeon. He then volunteered that he and the family had never been to the Smokey Mountains before. While appreciated, that was one question I didn’t need to ask.

Finally I had to ask him how he and his family had gotten in such a pickle, and this is what he told me.

​They had arrived the night before at the airport up in Maryville. After they arrived he called an Uber to drive him and his family to the outskirts of Walland and the air B&B that they had rented.

Everything went south the next morning when he called an Uber to take them to the trailhead of the Schoolhouse Gap Trail. Dad had gotten a little trail map of some sort, and it told him that the Schoolhouse Gap Trail was a breeze. It isn’t. Well, one side of the road is, but on the other side of the road it isn’t. He and his flatlander family chose the other side of the road. They made it about a mile or so up and turned back around. After a spell they once again arrived at the parking lot only to discover that there is no cell phone reception in the mountains to speak of, and their pickle was born.

It would appear that this poor family had hired a sadistic Uber driver, or they had hired a goober driver, but one way or the other they were in a fix.

To bring the story to a close, they all piled in the back of the truck once again and, rain or no, we drove the ten miles to Walland where we deposited the whole lot in the nice little air B&B they had rented.

To borrow a line from the great Tom T. Hall, “Lord if I judge ‘em let me give ‘em lots of room.” They just didn’t know any better.

I’ve been searching for a meaning, a deep meaning in this story. The Lord had me tell it, so I know it’s there. All I can say is this, beware of the confidence that ignorance brings.

Whether it’s heading up the trail in flip-flops and cutoffs with no map and no compass, or heading up that same trail in bikinis and tennis shoes searching for an imaginary sign, or calling an Uber to take you up the mountain with no way back, or quoting heresy as if it were truth, the responsibility to get it right is yours and yours only.

Many folks these days are quoting supposed ‘theologians’ as if their words are a pathway to truth. Before you venture out on the progressive limb, or the conservative limb for that matter, do your homework. Read the Word of God. Read the Word and listen to the Holy Spirit, not the countless voices of the world.

Take the time to study the map before you head out on the trail.

Love,
Pastor Tony
 

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