# data[].attributes.body
Walt’s split from his first wife, Marcia, was not a clean or amicable parting.
Long after falling in love with Billie, long after she gave birth to Chris, Walt
continued his relationship with Marcia in secret, dividing his time between two
households, two families. Lies were told and then exposed, begetting more lies
to explain away the initial deceptions.

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Bbut he had a darker side as well, characterized by
monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed
to intensify through his college years."

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He was almost crying, fighting back the tears, telling Dad that even
though they’d had their differences over the years, he was grateful for all the
things Dad had done for him.

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Chris informed his parents that he had no
intention of going to college.

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His friends all had a good opinion of him and saw the best in him. They even discussed his eccentricities and what ridiculous thing he was willing to do.

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He wasn’t antisocial— he always had friends, and
everybody liked him—but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He
didn’t seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely.”

Chris remained separate from other people. He had the opportunity to participate, but overall he chose to stay secluded from others. He wanted to be alone.

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...his moods can be dark and mercurial...

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Chris needs nothing and wants nothing. All he does is separate from who he is.

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Iris Fucyu. Address: “None of your damn
business.” Social Security number: “I forget.”

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Jim Gallien hears of Chris' death as authorities struggle to discover his identity.

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Everett twice etched the
name Nemo—Latin for “nobody”—into the soft Navajo sandstone—and then vanished.
He was twenty years old.

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Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine
and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don’t think I could ever
settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I
would prefer anything to an anticlimax.
THE LAST LETTER EVER RECEIVED FROM EVERETT RUESS, TO HIS
BROTHER, WALDO, DATED NOVEMBER 11, 1934
What Everett Ruess was after was beauty, and he conceived beauty

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A Dreamer, An Idealist, and an Outcast. 

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A Dreamer, An Idealist, and an Outcast. 

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There are similarities among Rosellini, Waterman, McCunn, and McCandless.
Like Rosellini and Waterman, McCandless was a seeker and had an impractical
fascination with the harsh side of nature. Like Waterman and McCunn, he
displayed a staggering paucity of common sense. But unlike Waterman,
McCandless wasn’t mentally ill. And unlike McCunn, he didn’t go into the bush
assuming someone would automatically appear to save his bacon before he came
to grief.

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"Rosellini’s “experiment” stretched on for more than a decade, but eventually
he felt the question that inspired it had been answered. In a letter to a friend he
wrote."

"Waterman was completely unhelmed by the loss...He was not seen again; it is assumed he broke through a thin
snow bridge and plummeted to his death at the bottom of one of the deep
fissures.

And a suicide.

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This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It
was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here.
Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time
before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear
from me again, I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild.

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Arrived in Whitefish this morning on a freight train. I am making
good time. Today I will jump the border and turn north for Alaska. Give my
regards to everyone.
TAKE CARE, ALEX

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McCandless may have been tempted by thesuccor offered by women, but it paled beside the prospect of rough congress
with nature, with the cosmos itself.

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Many who knew him have commented, unbidden, that he seemed to have
great difficulty seeing the trees, as it were, for the forest

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A hobo in Seattle

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Not infrequently during their visits, Franz recalls, McCandless’s face would
darken with anger and he’d fulminate about his parents or politicians or the endemic
idiocy of mainstream American life. Worried about alienating the boy,
Franz said little during such outbursts and let him rant.

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but I think he had a
lot of complexes—know what I’m saying- Charlie (homeless man Chris knew for a month).

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My theory... [Ii will be adding to it for future reference

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My theory... [Ii will be adding to it for future reference

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We all thought he was missing a few screws.- Zarza

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Chris went back to behaving in a  established manner: he got a job, a bank account, a steady life.

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He arrives back in the U.S.A.

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Alex abandons his canoe out of frustration

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he sneaked into Mexico by paddling through the dam’s open
floodgates and shooting the spillway below. “Alex looks quickly around for signs
of trouble,” his journal records. “But his entry of Mexico is either unnoticed or
ignored. Alexander is jubilant!”
His jubilance, however, was short-lived. Below the Morelos Dam the river
turns into a maze of irrigation canals, marshland, and dead-end channels, among
which McCandless repeatedly lost his way

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Wayne's postcard

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From Topock, McCandless paddled south down Lake Havasu

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One of my neighbors almost ran me over in my driveway and yelled at me for it (True  Personal Story)

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One of my neighbors almost ran me over in my driveway and yelled at me for it (True  Personal Story)

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"One of their neighbors
was the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency."

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Pistol River, Coos Bay, Seal Rock, Manzanita, As-toria; Hoquiam, Humptulips,
Queets; Forks, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Seattle.

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Arcata, California, in the dripping redwood forests of the Pacific shore,
McCandless turned right on U.S. Highway 101 and headed up the coast

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Red Bluff, Weaverville, and Willow Creek.

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"[He] spent a week walking north on the Pacific Crest Trail
before exiting the mountains and returning to the pavement."

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Two months of "tramp[ing]... or should I say Supertramping

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Two months of "tramp[ing]... or should I say Supertramping

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burning money"One hundred twenty-three dollars in legal tender was promptly reduced to ash and smoke."

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a garbage bag full of old clothes, a fishing rod, and tackle, a new electric razor, a harmonica,
a set of jumper cables ... and in the glove
compartment, the keys to the vehicle’s ignition.

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"Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic
and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality"

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"He used to sit right there at the end of the bar and
tell us these amazing stories of his travels. He could talk for hours".

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“Hell, no,” Alex scoffed. “How I feed myself is none of the government’s
business. Fuck their stupid rules.”

Carthage, South Dakota

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Picked up by Jim and taken to the trail.

"Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the
hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in
the gray Alaska dawn."