Forty Five Years Ago Today

Some 45 years ago, a small group of Hanafi Muslims took over Washington D.C.'s City Hall and the B'Nai Brith building, killing a reporter and shooting D.C. Councilman Marion Barry in the process. A three-day standoff ensued.

This was a shocking turn of events forty five  years ago. Back then, terrorism had not yet flown across the Atlantic, and Islam was not yet radicalized. Marion Barry was just a good city councilman -- he was not yet the cocaine-and sex-addicted ex-mayor of Washington. Crack and AIDS had not yet reared their ugly heads, and Cheech and Chong movies were still considered funny. There was no internet, no cell phones, no fax machines and no cable TV.

It seems a long time ago.

I remember the exact day the Hanafi Muslims took over the District Building because at the time I was 17 years old and walking the Appalachian Trail alone. It was the coldest winter in 200 years, and I had started south of Springer Mountain, Georgia in January. There had been sheet ice all through George, and monstrous snow drifts all through North Carolina and Tennessee. At night I slept with both water bottles and wet boots inside my sleeping bag so they would not freeze solid at night.

Back in Georgia, I had ditched my tent for a simple fly in order to save weight, and on days when I could stay on top of the snow I was walking 20 or more per day with a 60 pound pack on my back. Every two weeks I picked up food that I had mailed to myself care of General Delivery at towns along the way. Things has been fine for seven or eight weeks, but by the time I crossed into Virginia, my boots were beginning to fall apart and my little stove had developed a stress crack and exploded, sending a fire ball up just past my head.

That's the way it was when I crossed down a mountain somewhere in Virginia and came across a small ranger station.

It was about 5 o'clock in the late afternoon and the station was still open but a sign said they would be closing in a few minutes, and the station had a big overhanging porch and an outside faucet tap. I decided to wait until the rangers left for the day in order to bunk under the dry porch roof and avail myself of potable water from their tap. I walked over to a tree and sat down, but I was there only a few minutes before a ranger came out and asked me where I was coming from. I named the last town I had stopped at a week back. He ignored that answer and asked me if I had started at Springer. Yes, I said. He said that I was the first one through this year, and why didn't I come home with him. His wife would wash my clothes, I could take a bath, and he would grill us all hamburgers?

I protested a little, but he was having none of it, and that's how I found myself in his truck with the windows down despite the cold -- a small sign I smelled pretty rank after eight weeks in the same unwashed pair of pants.

Thirty years later, I do not remember the ranger's name, but I remember that he grilled hamburgers while his wife waited outside the bathroom for me to hand out my wool pants so she could wash them. Someone showed up to visit, and he asked me a few questions while I scarfed down four hamburgers in a row. On the television news, a reporter recounted the Hanafi Muslim hostage crisis going on in Washington, D.C. This was Big National News in 1977.

Early the next morning, the ranger asked if I would go to a prayer breakfast with him, and I said sure, not quite knowing what that meant. At breakfast, it was awkward, as I was asked to say the blessing, and I did not really know how. I did not pray at all then, and I rarely pray now. I mumbled something rambling and incoherent which concluded with an "amen." The men at this breakfast -- and they were all men -- were polite but every one of them knew I was unchurched.

When the ranger let me out at the road-head where he had found me, he gave me a small pocket-sized New Testament to carry with me on the trail. Thirty years later I still have that little book.

This ranger was the first Born Again Christian I ever met, and though I loathe the preachy self-righteousness of many fundamentalists, I will never forget the kindness extended to me by this man who walked his faith right into his house and never asked for anything back.

Months later, when I was back in D.C., an envelope arrived from the ranger station. Inside was a copy of a newspaper article about my walking the Appalachian trail in winter. It seems that the fellow who was asking me questions while I was wolfing down those hamburgers had been the local small town newspaper man. I have no idea when the picture was taken -- I don't remember posing for one -- but I am glad to have it, as it is the only picture I have of this time 45 years ago today.