Day Thirty

MICHAEL DOLAN!

I wish you the best in your journey you Pilgrim bastard! I know you will persevere throughout this unique challenge that you have set for yourself, but remember, if all of the villagers are speaking French again you need to turn left and get your ass back into Spain. .

You should carry with you some Heaney or Yeats as a temporary respite from the rigors of the trail. I’m sure the abundant natural beauty of the region will do well to carry you along as well. We all look forward to the occasional “missive from the front” as it were, so don’t forget about those of us back in Ohio on couches straining our lower backs as we reach for the wheat thins. I am truly impressed that you are taking this on with the characteristic Michael Dolan let-us-forge-ahead attitude. I certainly have valued our friendship over these years. You are a good friend.

When I was a kid growing up in Green Bay, I remember some families in the neighborhood made it a Sunday practice to walk to Resurrection for Mass. It wasn’t quite as far as Camino de Santiago, but to these large and sometimes quarreling families it likely felt like it. But they did it. One block at a time. And that’s how you will do it, only one day at a time. And you’ll be better off for having done it. And you’ll know thereafter that anything within 500 miles is simply walking distance.

Your Bud,

John Manley