Since there is more that I want to tell, let’s back up a few days: I motored up Blood Mountain on March 11, 1997, with a full cache of water for the evening’s cooking and drinking. I carried eight pounds of water to the top of this mountain so that I could experience sunrise and sunset from the first “mountain” on my trip. I was taking my time and taking lots of breaks, because of the phone coordination I had previously set with my parents. In 1997, portable cell phones were not yet mainstream or afforded by college students, so I relied on pay phones! Imagine that! I knew that my schedule would vary over the next weeks and months, but I wanted to call home that first week to assure my family of my wellbeing. So, we set a day and a time to talk. As I was taking in the beautiful landscape of Blood Mountain and eating my lunch, my mind changed; I did not want to “waste” the next few hours by sitting around and waiting on the sun to set, so I decided to hike on. What to do with the 5 quarts of water? “3.11.97 Now that I am descending, I decided to use the water while I had it, so I took a shower. I still smell a little bit, but I feel much better. The point is I toted eight pounds of extra weight for a shower! I still need a trail name.” I resupplied that afternoon at the world-famous Walasiyi Center at Neels Gap, called home, and met my first large group of thru-hikers. The Walasiyi Center is famous because of it’s location on the AT – three to four days from the southern terminus, the Trail passes through the Center’s breezeway and in between the pack shop and the hostel – and the contents of many potential thru-hiker’s backpacks is traded, tweaked, or sent home. Over a pint of ice cream, many hikers decide that the Trail life is not for them, and they catch a cab for home. The thru-hikers that I met at Neels Gap will infuse my stories from here on out and included Phluff-Head, Nugget, Buzzard, Old Crow, Whispering Pine, Goose, Scarecrow, Boogy, and 180º. That night I stopped at a campsite with Old Crow and a guy named Todd, “3.11.07 It is still beautiful out. Old Crow says the next time he sees me, he wants me to have a trail name.” Sitting around the Low Gap Shelter the next night with Phluff, Nug, Sleepy, Zac, BSUR (Be As You Are) and Whispering Pine, everyone had questions for me. They inquired about my hobbies, character traits, or idiosyncrasies that would work for a trail name. Whisper said that she had noticed how happy I was on the trail and how encouraging I was to others that were having a hard time. “Happy” or “Encourager” or “Barnabas” didn’t really fit, and the discussion was dropped for a few minutes during dinner. As I sat in the shelter and reviewed my past few days, I read through my journal entry by headlamp from 3.8.97 “Tonight is the first on the trail for me…I have started my THRU-HIKE!...FEARS: only small ones – not succeeding – staying healthy – depression and loneliness. Even though these have been expressed, I am very optimistic.” That’s it! Optimist! The other thru-hikers at the Low Gap Shelter liked it, so it stuck. I was immediately fond of the substance of my new title.