[at-l] A very special thank you

[Martin Fors]

To my AT family:

 

I write this personal note to you all because of what we as community share,
our love for the trail, the outdoors and a special understanding of what we
share:

 

The High:  Sheila and I were just returning from a wonderful 17 day
experience in the UK with our son and his partner.  

 

The Low:  As we drove over the bridge linking the towns of
Lyndon/Lyndonville, Vermont on Sunday afternoon, we saw blue lights ahead of
us and then two State troopers standing in an alert fashion with
shotguns/rifles at port arms.  "What in the world?" we said to each other.
We figured there must've been an armed robber but we were wrong.  It was
murder.  After shots were heard, a couple were found shot to death in back
of our municipal building.  My grand daughter heard the alert at a police
scanner at her friend's home.  She called us, informing us of what had
transpired.

 

A further Low:  I called back, speaking with her mother, our daughter,
telling her that a pickup truck and an auto were there at the scene
belonging to the deceased.  "O my God" she said "I hope it isn't Carol Ann!"
Carol Ann had been abused, stabbed in the past, with her life threatened by
her former partner.  A court injunction was served on him.  She was living
in a safe house she thought, until her partner's friends found out where she
lived and told him.

 

Even further down:  This morning, my daughter called in grief.  Yes, it was
Carol Ann who was murdered by her former partner.  He, then, committed
suicide.  This was especially difficult since my daughter had led Carol Ann
to a very good job at the same corporation where she works.   They had
become good friends and she worried over her situation.  She's in grief; my
grand daughter is in grief; I'm in grief.

 

An upward direction:  I picked up my bushel basket of mail this morning and
started sorting through it.  There, I found the ALDHA 25th DVD that Weather
Carrot had created.

 

More up:  I just finished watching it.  It was what I needed, to see our
wonderful community of hikers, wanna-be's, young and old with the history so
beautifully participated in and told by Warren and so many of you.  

 

Weather Carrot:  Thank you and God bless you for creating such a treasure.
You brought me out of great sadness and back to the journey at hand.  To all
of you:  I wish that I could've been at the 25th, but my work with the
returned military and their families prevented me from being there.  I'm
planning already for the 26th, but that's a way off.  :-)

 

Blessings to all.  Rusty

 

Here's the link to the story, above.
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=5636922