Pizza Blog Interview!
This was truly a unique and fun interview! I was contacted by Chris and Sean to talk about the film and just what’s going on… and we had beer and pizza to top it all off! Check out their story below…
We meet Glenn at MAFIAoZA’s Pizzeria and Neighborhood Pubin Franklin, TNon a cool June evening. It is Tuesday, or 2-for-1 Tuesday as MAFIAoZA’s calls it!
We jokingly tell the hostess we are “pizza bloggers” and to take us to the best seats in the house! She smiles to placate and leads us upstairs to the second level and out onto an open-air, roof-covered, deck. This place is big…almost too big.
There is an outdoor patio below us filled mostly with families having dinner under black umbrellas stamped with Jack Daniel’s Old No7 Brand. We are more familiar with the smaller, more intimate, 12th South location of MAFIAoZA’s where Tuesdays are normally jam-packed. There is plenty of elbow room here tonight and we like that.
First level patio at MAFIAoZA's Franklin.
Glenn reminds us that this place used to be home to Magnolia’s restaurant back in the day. The three of us settle into our high-top table and order some beers. They come in twos.
Don’t Apologize, You’ve Earned That Smell
We ask Glenn to tell us more about Trail Mix, a documentary we know he is working on because of several short clips we’ve recently seen him post on social media. The clips show Glenn talking to hikers on the Appalachian Trail (AT) as they reveal very personal reasons for going into the woods.
Most AT thru-hikers start here, in Springer Mtn, Georgia
The AT is a 2,190-mile journey from Georgia to Maine. Each year thousands of people set out to thru-hike the trail, but only about one out of every four make it to touch the marker at the northern terminus of the AT on Mount Katahdin in Maine. Those who do are forever known as 2000 milers.
Thru-hikers end their journey here on Mount Katahdin in Maine
“The film is really about the healing value of nature,” says Glenn. “I wasn’t a hiker. I didn’t even own a backpack. But I became curious about the hikers I would see near my cabin in North Carolina and I felt the need to understand their story. I wasn’t so much interested in the physical feat of hiking the AT as I was understanding what would motivate someone to leave their life behind for 6 months and venture into the woods.”
We both love hiking and have found ourselves at times following the siren sound that draws one to wreck their day-to-day and hit the trail similar to how Chris McCandless did when he walked Into The Wild of Alaska never to return. We have hiked together on trails in California, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Canada, Ireland, and of course Tennessee. Though we have yet to thru-hike or ramble into the wild and just disappear, we do still dream about it.
Glenn continues, “I took my camera and began doing small sections of the AT so that I could meet hikers on the trail. I was worried no one would talk to me or that they would fear me approaching them. But I was blown away by their willingness to open up and share their stories with me. I have been deeply impacted by the experience and I want the film to help spread the healing and transformative power of nature as experienced by these hikers.”
Glenn is know for taking the best selfies around...he did not disappoint!
Glenn has great hair, an easy manner, and a soft voice. He’s quick to smile. We think he underrates his own charisma, especially its ability to make hikers feel at ease and safe enough to share their innermost demons with a stranger on a trail in the middle of the wilderness.
“It’s funny,” Glenn says. “Sometimes the hikers I meet on the trail apologize for the way they smell because most people hiking the AT don’t shower or pack deodorant when thru-hiking. I always tell them, ‘don’t apologize, you’ve earned that smell’.”
Trails Please Foundation
Our pizzas arrive, and we dive in. The pizza pies here all have names that conjure the mafia-life, names like – The Informant, The Godfather, Brass Knuckles, The Last Request. We ordered The Long Vacation (For the few who might have to get away. Pineapple, ham, and cheese.) and The Ricco Act (It’s so good, it’s criminal…But the feds got nothing’ on us! Pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushroom, and caramelized onions).
The pizza here is good and has won its fair share of Voter’s Choice Awards for “best pizza” in Nashville. The Long Vacation has been a favorite of ours since MAFIAoZA’s first opened on 12th Avenue Southback in 2003.
We have finished our pizza and are on round two of 2-for-1 beers, when Glenn tells us about a man he recently met on the AT who is going blind and is distant from his kids. He started the hike not knowing if he would still be able to see when he finished the six months, but he wanted to do something his kids could be proud of him for, and he wanted the last thing he sees to be healing in nature. The stories Glenn tells of those he has met on the trail reminds us of why we like hiking.
“A lot of people on the trail,” Glenn says, “are walking off some trauma.” “I have met veterans walking off PTSD, others walking off a drug addiction, a divorce, a personal loss, or just walking into the woods when all else about the real world has failed them.”
It easy to see that working on this film has changed Glenn. It’s even inspired him to start a charity called Trails Please Foundation in order to give back to the trails and the people they heal. His initial goal is to provide annual college scholarships, while helping create nature programs for prisoners and military vets. We have donated. If you feel so moved, please do the same.
Walking Off An Old Me
We walk out of MAFIAoZA’s under a twilight sky and say goodbye to Glenn.
Playing in our head is Maggie Rogers’ earworm of a song called Alaska in which she recounts a hike she did in Alaska where “I walked off you, and I walked off an old me.”
As we watch Glenn disappear into the night, we are certain he has just walked off an old version of himself too. And, perhaps, that’s what we are doing with this blog…walking off an old version of ourselves, one conversation at a time.
[Playing in our heads as we drive away] I walked off you…and I walked off an old me…oh me, oh my, I thought it was a dream…so it seemed
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