By Rita McInerney

Joe Goode's tape-recorded journal gives recognition to all of the people who helped him in his 182-day conquest of the Appalachian Trail.

He speaks at length of the unstinting support of his wife, Mary Jean, his six children, a favorite aunt, friends and former co-workers. And he thanks God. It was family and friends who saw he had regular food packages, mail, brief visits along the 2,142 mile trail. It was his God who kept him, at 55, free of illness and hardy enough to go the distance. Who allowed him to see many beauties of creation; spring trillium in the south, mountain laurel in the north, fall foliage in New England, and all the mountains and lakes and the ever-present small animals along the trail.

Hikers refer to "trail magic," that force that happens, "to bail you out when things get hopeless. I 'd rather think of it as God's amazing grace," Joe Goode says.

That grace was with him Oct. 1 when he battled to reach the summit at Mount Katahdin in northern Maine, the end of the Appalachian Trail.

Above the tree line it was bitter cold with sustained winds of over 50 miles per hour. Goode found it hard to keep his hiking staff upright. He would have agreed if either of his two companions mentioned turning back.

But one or the other kept saying, "Let's go on to the next rock." They kept climbing, making it to the summit of the 5,267 foot mountain about midday.

Then it was time for Goode, 55, his twin brother Bernie, of Washington, D.C., and Bernie's son, Jimmy, to hurry down the mountain and celebrate their accomplishment with waiting wives and girl-friend.

Joe Goode calls his journey "a once in a lifetime event. It's something I'll always have with me. It taught me I could endure physical situations that seemed hopeless, impossible." Trail statistics say about 1,000 people start from the southernmost point, Springer Mountain in north Georgia each year. About 150 finish at Mount Katahdin.

And Goode is "100 percent sure I'll never do it again." Although he trained at home before starting out, it was "extraordinarily difficult to hike day after day under conditions that wear you down. The trail is hard with every kind of obstacle. You just yearn for a flat path."

He treasures the moments of exhilaration. Finding a grassy patch high on a mountain where he threw off his heavy pack and stretched out in the grass. The satisfaction of setting up his tent in a downpour without getting soaked. Seeing a bald eagle in the Maine wilderness. The luxury of a shower. Lying in his tent and watching the darkness fall.

The trio climbed Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the highest mountain on the trail, on Sept. 3. They "were blessed with a rare clear day," one of only 30 each year. The temperature was 28 degrees with winds of 42 miles per hour gusting to 86 miles per hour.

Everyone takes a trail name. Goode was "Cotton Patch," after the popular musical enjoyed by many Georgians. His twin was "Silverback," a name given to the dominant male gorilla. Bernie chose that name "hoping to get a little respect," his brother explains. Jimmy Goode acquired his trail name, "Seabear," in 1985 when he "came downhill," hiking the Appalachian Trail north to south from Mount Katahdin to Springer Mountain. He turned 31 on the 1992 hike.

People use their trail names when they write messages, greetings or "whatever is on your mind," in the register at the shelters spaced about a day's hike apart. Joe Good, active in the peace and justice committee at St. Jude Church in Sandy Springs, took to entering what he calls "peace ditties," mostly on the theme of non-violence. He borrowed quotes from Father Charles McCarthy, Father Dan Berrigan and Vaclav Havel.

He learned that one entry in Vermont was written over with the comment, "This is a crock." Sometimes the entries spawned good dialogue including talks with "Saddlebum," an Army retiree who believed in peace through force.

There were delightful breaks in the daily grind. A visit in Erwin, Tenn., from Mary Jean and their son, David, who had hiked as a "southbounder" in 1989. Four good friends from the Ultreya (post-Cursillo group) at St. Jude joined him at Damascus, VA. Bill Broderick, Ron Hutchinson, Ray Stuermer and Frank Renner hiked with him for a few days.

He kept a date with his daughter, Anne, and stayed two days at the ashram where she lives in Unionville, NY. Still in New York, he enjoyed Franciscan hospitality at Graymoor. After a good meal and a night's sleep in a bed, the three men attended Mass at St. Christopher's Inn where the monks house alcoholics and homeless men.

Dialects changed as they walked north, but everywhere people were friendly. Cool water was always available at little houses a short distance off the trail. In the small country stores there was relief from the trail diet with cookies, candies, soft drinks and Perfecto cigars.

So partial to Perfectos had they become on the trail that Joe Goode actually found himself "panhandling" change to buy a supply. He had hitched a ride into a town from the trail and forgotten to bring money. A man gave him enough change to buy cookies and cigars after hearing his plea.

It had been Goode's intent to make his foot journey a time for improving his contemplative prayer life. But he soon found it impossible to concentrate when his "bony old body" was pushing hard and pleading for relief. He was faithful in saying a daily Rosary and in praying for people back home. Archbishop James Lyke was regularly in his prayers.

Mary Jean Goode was able to arrange her schedule as an RN in the neonatal intensive care unit at Northside Hospital to be at Mount Katahdin for the trail's last conquest. This meant a lot to her husband. "Without her I could not have done the walk. She not only took care of things at home, but she took care of me out on the trail," with care packages of food and needed items mailed to stops on his itinerary.

A civil engineer, Goode retired Jan. 3, 1992 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The idea for the hike was planted in 1981 when Bernie called his brother to wish him a happy birthday and "haphazardly said, 'Why don't we hike the Appalachian Trail after we retire.' I said OK and we agreed to meet on Springer Mountain on March 22, 1992. We kept our promise."