I remember when The Deacon came to visit me in Washington, DC in the late 1980s.
He lived in Boston at the time, where he was studying for his Masters in Philosophy. I worked at American Rivers on the Hill. We wanted to visit the Dolly Sods area of West Virginia for a weekend of camping, hiking and exploring. We headed westward in my ’76 VW camper, FNARIO. It was cold outside and we soon discovered that we had come to the woods during a busy weekend in the middle of deer hunting season. We had no orange gear to put on so the hunters would know we were hippies, not deer. Eventually, we gave up looking for a peaceful place to hike and camp and headed back into Virginia with a new plan. We made it to Shenandoah National Park and after paying the entry fee and entering the park, we looked up and saw something we had not seen on this trip—a herd of deer casually grazing in the grass, not a concern in the world. Clearly, we had entered a sanctuary where gentle deer and roaming freaks were free to mingle. With this good omen, we decided to go on a moonlit hike on an old mountain trail.
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