Called Again

I first met Jen just a few weeks into our freshman year of college.  My R.A. Cara and I had organized a competitive intramural volleyball team when we each found out the other was a serious volleyball player.  You basically had to have played varsity volleyball in high school to be on our team.  Seriously—you can ask some of my best friends whom I didn’t even let on the team (not that they would have wanted to deal with my competitive spirit anyway).  Jen was the exception to that rule.  She was quite tall at 6'0, a natural athlete, and on the Samford tennis team so when another player invited her to play with us, we eagerly agreed. 

That was the beginning of my friendship with Jen.  Through four seasons of “Enfuego” volleyball, Music Appreciation class, and just hanging out together, we became good friends.  Jen’s also from where my family’s mountain house is located so we had that in common as well, and I occasionally saw her in North Carolina during the summer or over the holidays. 

You don’t have to be around Jen very long to notice two things about her:  she is extremely genuine and extremely talented.  She is one of the most authentic people I know, and the list of things she has already accomplished in her life is truly awe-inspiring (including writing two books and hiking more than 12, 000 miles on six different continents).

photo from Amazon.com 

In her recent book, Called Again, Jen relates the exciting tale of how she (with the support and help of her husband Brew) set the overall record for the Appalachian Trail fastest thru-hike.  The fact that Jen currently holds this title is evidence enough of her talent, but the memoir itself shows that Jen’s talent is not limited to the trail.  You are immediately drawn into the story and taken up with Jen’s passion and drive to attempt the record.  In fact, I even found myself wanting to climb the A.T. as I read the book, which is rather remarkable since I am not especially fond of sleeping in tents.  It’s hard to put the book down, and the characters are so well-developed that you want to meet their real-life counterparts.  In particular, I enjoyed “getting to know” Brew more through the book.  While I’ve met Jen’s husband a couple of times in real life, I feel like I know him so much more after reading this part of their story. 

Jen’s genuine nature also comes out in the book.  She weaves in her faith in subtle but sincere ways.  She lightly describes her “15 minutes of fame.”  Above all, she is real.  You see her ups and downs in the quest for the record, experiencing both the tears and the triumph with her.   So when Jennifer Pharr Davis reaches Springer Mountain, Georgia, just 46 days after she left Mt. Katahdin, Maine, you do too.