age

What’s more impressive: Dylan O’Leary, the 25-year-old rookie football coach at San Dimas High, or Dylan O’Leary, the math teacher who graduated from UCLA and got his master’s at La Verne?

He’s good in both roles. San Dimas has started 2-0, with wins over Glendora (24-21) and Chaffey (44-8). His father, Tim, was a longtime baseball coach at Covina. Dylan spent four years as an assistant coach at South Hills.

He used to be a three-sport athlete at San Dimas, which has long used the Wing-T offense in football. When O’Leary was interviewed for the job, one of the first questions was, “Are you going to run the same offense?”

He was truthful in saying no.

San Dimas has switched to a spread offense. O’Leary has helped himself by adding lots of experienced assistant coaches and former head coaches.

Even though O’Leary is young, he’s earned respect in the classroom and on the field. He’s a full-time math teacher with a teaching credential. Even when he was 22 and teaching math to 17- and 18-year-olds at Chino Hills, few were skeptical about his youth.

“I’ve never really had an issue with my age,” he said.

In a time when it’s tough getting a full-time teaching job at such a young age and when coaches are mostly walk-ons, O’Leary is in position to make himself very valuable.

And, if the wins keep piling up, San Dimas might need to put a fence around his classroom so no one steals him away.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Alysa Liu is stepping away from skating again.

The first time, following her bronze medal at the 2022 world championships, Liu considered herself retired at age 16.

This time, six months after becoming the first American woman to win Olympic gold in skating since 2002, the 21-year-old athlete says she’s simply taking a year off from the sport and is already planning her return.

“I will not be competing this season,” Liu wrote Monday on Instagram. “I always want to challenge myself in new ways, so my artistry & skating can evolve. It’s important to me that my sport reflects my personal growth. I’m gonna take the time to recalibrate, fine-tune things & whatnot.

“So fear not, I’ll be back, & in the meantime I’ll be rooting for my teammates near & far. See yall soon!!”

Born in Clovis and raised primarily in Oakland, Liu won back-to-back U.S. championships in 2019 and 2020 at ages 13 and 14. In February 2022, she finished seventh at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Less than two months later, Liu announced on Instagram that she was “done with my goals in skating [and] i’m going to be moving on with my life.”

During her two years off, Liu hiked to Mount Everest base camp with friends, enrolled at UCLA and focused on herself.

“I found what I like and what I didn’t like,” Liu said earlier this year. “Really got to know myself, because [when] I had skating, I didn’t really know myself. I couldn’t know myself. I only ever did one thing.”

She returned to skating in 2024 on her own terms, with a new look that included a halo hairstyle and a “smiley” piercing in the tissue connecting her upper lip to her gums. A gold medal at the 2025 world championships set the stage for her triumph at the Milano-Cortina Games.

While her last break was an effort to get away from skating, Liu told NBC Sports that this time she will continue training to improve her “overall artistry, spins, jumps, everything.”

“I really want to improve my skating, and I wanted to take the time to do that for myself and just to evolve, and then I’ll be back after that is done,” Liu said. “But I’ll still be cheering on all my competitors and my teammates, and I’m really excited.”

She added that “logically and emotionally and physically, this just makes the most sense” and “I just felt this was right. So I’m trusting my instincts.”

British actor Tim Curry, who famously commanded attention as the seductive mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter in cult classic oddball musical “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” has died. He was 80.

The Daytime Emmy-winning actor’s longtime manager and friend Marcia Hurwitz confirmed that Curry died Wednesday at his home in Toluca Lake, in a statement shared with The Times. A cause of death was not revealed. The Cheshire native suffered a stroke in 2013, impairing his ability to walk. Though he remained in a wheelchair until his death, the actor continued working through his final years.

“Though widely known for his inimitable, flamboyant characters and colorful stage performances,” the statement said of Curry, “his greatest legacies to those who knew him were his curious, expansive mind and generous, gentle heart, both of which remained open and filled with anticipation until his final breath.”

Curry is best known for originating the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the self-proclaimed “Sweet Transvestite” and purveyor of pleasure who guides a stranded young couple — and audiences — through an unpredictable evening of sexual exploration and liberation. He debuted the offbeat experimental musical in fishnets and pearls in 1973 on the tiny stage upstairs at the Royal Court Theater in London, where it first became an underground sensation.

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” hit the big screen in 1975, with Susan Sarandon as Janet and Barry Bostwick as Brad. A rock ‘n’ roll take on sci-fi and horror B-movies, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” became the original midnight movie that endeared generations of audiences with its flamboyant characters, spawned interactive screenings across the country and secured its spot in the pop culture lexicon.

“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” Curry told The Times in 2025 upon the film’s 50th anniversary. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”

Curry flexed his versatile acting through more than Frank-N-Furter’s showy elevator debut and his vulnerable “I’m Going Home” finale. He was also a sinister Pennywise in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “It,” a secretive butler named Wadsworth in “Clue,” and the evil Lord of Darkness in “Legend.” A screen chameleon capable of morphing from the supernatural to the pedestrian, Curry was also known for his work as fabled pirate Long John Silver in “Muppet Treasure Island” and as a skeptical hotel concierge in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

He was a prolific voice actor known for the environmental classic “FernGully: The Last Rainforest” and TV series “The Wild Thornberries,” “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Over the Garden Wall” and “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.”

Timothy James Curry was born April 19, 1946, to father Jim Curry, a Navy chaplain, and mother Maura Curry. After losing his father at age 12, Curry earned a scholarship to the Kingswood School in Bath. Curry’s grandfather took him to music halls, fostering his love for the art.

“I was really taken with the great Technicolor musicals; it’s the form that’s closest to my heart in a way,” Curry told The Times in 1992. “It’s the most comfortable synthesis of all the things I do.”

School productions eventually led Curry to the University of Birmingham, where he studied drama and English from 1965 to 1968, according to his website.

Curry made his professional debut in 1968 in the original London production of “Hair.” He had fibbed about having previous professional experience and an Equity card, but the production team thought Curry’s talents were reason enough to sponsor him. After he starred in several productions including “Titus Andronicus,” “Cinderella” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” co-star Richard O’Brien in 1973 invited the actor to audition for a new work — one that would later solidify Curry as a generational screen and stage icon.

With Curry anchoring as Frank-N-Furter, O’Brien’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show” first came to life at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs. Then larger venues overseas included L.A.’s Roxy Theatre. Eventually, with the support of producer Lou Adler, the show made it to the screen. The same year “Rocky Horror Picture Show” hit cinemas in 1975, its Broadway run at the Belasco Theatre shuttered after 45 showings and negative reviews. Over the years, harsh criticism proved no match for “Rocky Horror Picture Show’s” unexpected staying power.

The musical had been revived numerous times in New York and London, including in 2001 with the Broadway revival earning multiple Tony Award nominations including a nomination for revival of a musical.

The “Rocky Horror Picture Show” film and Curry’s melodramatic Frank-N-Furter have remained cultural touchstones, spawning the popular “anticipation” online meme and inspiring spoofs on “Glee,” “The Simpsons” and a beloved character (with hormone-manipulating abilities) in the popular Japanese manga and anime “One Piece.”

To Curry, Frank-N-Furter was more than just that “sweet transvestite” obsessed with manufacturing the perfect man.

“He’s a fairly complex guy,” he told The Times in 1974. “He just takes anything he can get. He’s not fussy, really. Though I think he’s something of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”

Through the late 70s to early aughts, Curry balanced stage commitments with screen projects and musical endeavors. His stage resumé includes productions of Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the title role in playwright Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” (that would earn him a Tony nomination) and Joseph Papp’s take on “Pirates of Penzance.” All the while, he gained fame for roles in “Annie,” “Clue,” “Home Alone 2” and “Addams Family Reunion.” As a recording artist, Curry released three albums between 1978 and 1981: “Read My Lips,” “Fearless” and “Simplicity.”

In 1988 Curry returned stateside for a U.S. tour of “Me & My Girl,” which he followed with a residency at the Pantages. It was then the actor decided to permanently return to Los Angeles as a resident. His move to Southern California coincided with the beginning of his Emmy-winning voice acting career, which started with a role for Hanna Barbera’s animated adaptation of “The Creation.”

Curry won his Daytime Emmy Award in 1991 for voicing Captain Hook in “Peter Pan and the Pirates” and earned a Grammy nomination in 2002 for the audiobook of “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.” He performed voice roles for video games including television and film tie-ins “Brutal Legend” and “Dragon Age: Origins.”

The British star primarily worked in voice roles after he suffered a major stroke in 2013. Since then, Curry had been in a wheelchair, with on-screen cameos including as the criminologist in the 2016 TV remake of “Rocky Horror.” Still, the image of Curry’s fierce Frank-N-Furter continues to pervade pop culture — even if that wasn’t his original intention.

“None of it was planned, really. I just knew I had to take risks,” he told The Times in 1974. “Life is like acting in that way. You’ve got to take risks. If you take big risks, it’s then up to you whether or not you pull it off.”

More than 50 years after that interview, Curry told The Times that he had no doubt in what he was doing. Revisiting his home away from home, the Roxy Theatre, in the fall of 2025, Curry said it had become “my stomping ground.”

“I had to appear as though I owned it — and I kind of did.”

Long before he arrived at USC, a couple days shy of his 17th birthday, Ethan “Boobie” Feaster had always been in a hurry to grow up.

He was the baby of the Feaster family, seven years younger than his next youngest sibling. But nothing about his behavior, even as a kid, suggested as much. He was always quiet, calm, determined, seemingly from birth, according to his father, Lee. When Lee Feaster encouraged Boobie at age 8 to write down his goals, and “make ‘em plain,” Boobie took the advice literally. He went straight to his bathroom mirror and copied them down. They’re still written on the bathroom mirror, to this day.

When he was 9, Boobie asked his father to buy him a football poster. Lee came in later to find it attached to the ceiling, above his bed. He asked Boobie why.

“I need it to be the first thing I see when I wake up,” Lee recalled him saying, “and the last thing I see when I go to bed.”

This, needless to say, was not exactly normal behavior for a 9-year-old. But nothing about Boobie Feaster has ever been normal. Least of all the relentless drive that would one day have everyone at USC raving and others around the nation whispering about one of the most anticipated freshman in college football.

Neither is it normal exactly for USC’s offensive-minded coach, Lincoln Riley, to enter into a season so unproven at the receiver position.. With the status of No. 1 receiver Tanook Hines still unclear less than a week out from the season opener, USC will almost certainly have to rely on a group of talented freshman receivers to hit the ground running.

That includes Boobie, who at just 17 years and three months, will be the youngest among them by a wide margin. In fact, he may be the youngest ever to suit up at USC. Feaster is the school’s youngest player dating back to when USC started recording player birth dates.

But talk to those who know Boobie best, and they’ll tell you that age, in his case, is merely a number.

“He’s always been an old soul,” said Kerry Sweeney, the receivers coach at DeSoto High in Texas.

Sweeney met Boobie when he was in the seventh grade. He’d heard about the kid’s stellar football IQ, so he tried to stump him. He asked Feaster, then barely 12, to explain the difference between cover-2 and cover-3 defenses.

Boobie Feaster looks across the field during a youth football game. The USC receiver frequently played against older kids.

(Courtesy of Lee Feaster)

“He knew exactly what it was,” Sweeney said.

What Sweeney didn’t know was that when Lee Feaster, a football coach himself, was studying game film, Boobie was right there with him. He knew a lot more than coverage schemes.

Boobie had also been playing up one — or two even — age levels. In the seventh grade, he started working with a personal receivers coach, David Robinson of D-Rob Sports & Fitness Training. A year later, Robinson had Boobie, as an eighth grader, training with former NFL receivers, such as Dez Bryant, or college receivers on their way to the NFL.

“There was no polish or anything,” Robinson said. “But he was just a natural. Natural speed, natural length, naturally tall.”

But it was his mind that continued to mystify coaches most. Even at a young age, he made sure to concern himself with the minor nuances of the playbook and the receiver position. By the time he debuted as a freshman at DeSoto, coaches already trusted him to run choice routes, which gives the receiver multiple different options based on the defensive alignment.

By the state playoffs that season, Sweeney said that Boobie was already the best receiver on a team that would produce three Division 1 wideouts.

“He was dominating,” Sweeney said, “as a freaking freshman. “

It seemed clear to everyone around him, at that point, that Boobie could handle skipping a season of high school football. So after his sophomore season, Boobie reclassified from the Class of 2027, in which he was recognized as a top-five prospect in the nation, to 2026.

His relationship with USC receivers coach Dennis Simmons was solidified by that point. They’d been introduced when Boobie was in the seventh or eighth grade — and just beginning to blow up on social media. Simmons said he was impressed by Boobie’s maturity.

“He recruited Boobie really hard,” Robinson said. “That relationship is what really kind of jump-started USC as a front-runner.”

USC never relinquished that spot. But Feaster had to wait until he enrolled at USC this summer while the other talented pass-catchers in his class got a head start.

That’s not to say he wasn’t trying to get ahead in other ways.

Boobie Feaster reaches out to catch a pass during his youth training before arriving at USC.

(Courtesy of Lee Feaster)

Lee Feaster said that before his son’s arrival at USC, Boobie was obsessing for months over USC’s playbook. He worked flashcards with Robinson and sometimes made his father line up in the street in front of their house just to commit certain plays and alignments to memory.

“Oh, he knew the playbook,” Lee Feaster said. “He knew it before he got there.”

He’s opening eyes at USC practice. During a preseason scrimmage at the Coliseum last week, Boobie burst through a sliver in USC’s defense and took a tunnel screen to the house, reminding in one play exactly why USC’s coaches thought he was ready to contribute at 17.

“He was game-ready,” wideout Terrell Anderson said, “as soon as he came in.”

How quickly he’ll actually influence a game at USC remains to be seen. The Trojans are expected to play several freshmen against San José State on Saturday, and anyone who knows Boobie will tell you it’s only a matter of time before he contributes. After all, after starting in the slot, Feaster took it upon himself to start learning the outside receiver spot.

When Boobie moved to L.A. in May, his father tagged along, just to make sure he got acclimated. His mother came shortly after that.

And they’re reminded sometimes that Feaster is still just a teenager. That he’s still got a lot of growing to do. His goals are still written on his bathroom mirror, to remind him of that every day.

But if the past is any indication, it shouldn’t be long.

“I believe, like three games in, everyone is going to be saying, ‘Who’s this freshman?” Sweeney said. “Who’s this Boobie Feaster?’”

The youth movement among our political leaders, especially among Democrats, is in full cry. On the whole, this looks to be a positive inflection point in our political leadership, empowering a new generation of leaders advocating needed changes in the government’s relationship with its constituents.

But in some particulars it’s misplaced. As the smoke from the recent party primaries clears, it’s proper to take stock in what we’ve lost, alongside what we may gain from a changing of the guard.

For example, take Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.), 78, who was turfed out of his seat in his state’s Aug. 11 primary by his Democratic challenger, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, 47.

Given that Larson is in his 28th year as a member of congress, it sounds reasonable to suggest that it’s his time to go. But that means overlooking Larson’s most important role in the House, as a member of both the majority and (currently) the minority. And that’s his persistent campaign to preserve Social Security — indeed, to enhance it so it serves today’s workers as well or better than it has served Americans since its enactment in 1935.

There doesn’t seem to be much risk that Bronin’s election, which looks likely, will undermine the progressive faction in the House.

Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District, which Larson represents, is perhaps the bluest district in a blue state, and Bronin’s policy positions tick all the appropriate progressive boxes. But it will probably take years for Bronin to acquire the credibility on Social Security that Larson possessed, even assuming that he wishes to do so.

Larson’s instrument has been the Social Security 2100 Act, which he first introduced in 2017. The act has never passed, but in its draft versions it has embodied several principles that remain fundamental to the Democratic approach to Social Security.

Among them: augmenting benefits to the lowest-wage workers; providing coverage to those whose work has been outside the system, such as family caregivers; and raising Social Security taxes on the rich, who have increasingly avoided paying their fair share of the costs of this all-important antipoverty program. More on that in a moment.

Larson’s loss didn’t result from his championing Social Security. The thrust of Bronin’s campaign was almost entirely that Larson had grown too old in the job, and the path should be cleared for new blood (i.e., himself).

Nothing is new about the drive to bring fresh faces and fresh ideas into the political mainstream. Youth movements arise regularly in politics, especially in times of partisan discontent.

George Orwell, whose observations about the politics and mores of his time remain relevant to the present, wrote (in 1932) of the youth movement that erupted in Britain in 1918.

“At that time,” he wrote in “The Road to Wigan Pier,” his classic about class and economics, “there was, among the young, a curious cult of hatred of ‘old men.’ The dominance of ‘old men’ was held to be responsible for every evil known to humanity, and every accepted institution from [Sir Walter] Scott’s novels to the House of Lords was derided merely because ‘old men’ were in favor of it.”

Orwell traced the phenomenon to Britain’s experience in World War I, which he wrote “had been conducted mainly by old men and had been conducted with supreme incompetence. By 1918 everyone under forty was in a bad temper with his elders, and the mood of anti-militarism which followed naturally upon the fighting was extended into a general revolt against orthodoxy and authority.”

Today’s youth movement, which is concentrated among Democrats, has an analogous origin. It’s rooted in distaste for a politics that has impoverished a generation while filling the pockets of the wealthy.

In some cases, the need to usher superannuated politicians out the door is indisputable. A prime specimen was Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), whose mental and physical incapacities became manifest as she neared the end of her life; in 2023 she died in office at 90.

On the other hand, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), led her Democratic caucus with a firm hand as Speaker until she yielded the gavel in 2023 at age 82, having notched one of the most successful speakerships in history. (She’s not running for reelection this year.)

Joe Biden, whose apparently faltering faculties became a political talking point during his 2024 presidential reelection campaign, when he was 82 and was in the process of returning the U.S. economy to its pre-pandemic strength when he lost to Donald Trump — who at the age of 80 has been systematically dismantling Biden’s economic policies to the disadvantage of middle-class and working Americans.

Meanwhile, has anybody heard recently from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), age 84? He hasn’t been seen in public since mid-June. At the moment, he’s regarded as one of those politicians determined to hold on to their seats with what Orwell (him again) described as their “prehensile bottoms.”

As I wrote in 2023, when the age issue was all the rage, “concern-trolling about the advanced age of government leaders hasn’t always been a path to political success.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt cited a “hardening of the judicial arteries” in announcing his 1937 scheme to pack the Supreme Court, which involved shifting the politics of the court to the left by trying to force justices to retire when they reached the age of 70, or adding a justice to the court for every sitting justice who refused. FDR’s plan collapsed after it provoked widespread opposition, the most significant political failure of the New Deal.

That brings us back to the Social Security 2100 Act. The measure, which was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), isn’t perfect. In fact it has been revised at least three times, typically to address political wavelets that come and go.

In all versions, over time it would eliminate the cap on payroll taxes, which are currently limited to 12.4% on wage income up to a maximum of $184,500. That’s a maximum tax of $22,878, divided 50/50 between workers and their employers.

Because of the cap, the effective payroll tax rate on someone with income of $1 million falls to about 2.3%; in reality it’s even lower, because unearned income such as capital gains, interest and dividends, which constitute half or more of the income of wealthy households, isn’t taxed at all.

Originally, the bill called for raising the payroll tax rate by one-tenth of a percentage point a year, to an employer/employee combined 14.8% by the 2040. On the other hand, Larson would reduce the income tax on Social Security earnings, returning a bit to middle- and lower-income workers. Social Security’s actuaries calculated that Larson’s bill would ensure the program’s solvency for at least 75 years, but in practical terms into the almost limitless future.

The rate increase was dropped in subsequent versions, but it was supplanted by a 12.4% tax on net investment income for taxpayers with income over $400,000. That would guarantee the system’s solvency into the 2060s, the actuaries calculated.

Social Security’s advocates plainly could see Larson’s defeat coming. The day before the Connecticut primary, three of them published an op-ed calling Larson an “irreplaceable” asset to their cause. “When it comes to fighting for Social Security,” they wrote, “no one has worked harder than Rep. Larson.” They pointed out that the “Social Security 2100 Act earned in the last Congress support from over 90% of House Democrats, representing all corners of the Democratic coalition.”

Bronin hasn’t said anything specific about Social Security, beyond a campaign pledge that he’ll work for “strengthening” the program. I asked his campaign whether he had any details to offer, but didn’t get a reply. Larson, for his part, has reacted to his defeat with a gentlemanly call for all Democrats to come together to defeat Trump.

Unlike Republicans, who have spent decades slandering Social Security as an undeserved “entitlement” and suggesting that it’s responsible for federal budget deficits (impossible, as a matter of law) and sluggish economic growth (untrue, as a matter of fact), Democrats have worked to preserve it, if not always effectively.

In coming Congresses, Republicans will be offering all sorts of nostrums to “save” Social Security. History says that these will aim to impose benefit cuts on workers to protect the rich from higher taxes.

Will the Democrats stand fast against this long GOP campaign? With Larson’s defeat, they’ll be short one leader. Let’s hope the rest of the party keeps the faith.

Growing up in a hiking family with a history along the Appalachian Trail, I became obsessed this summer with 91-year-old Dale “Greybeard” Sanders’ attempt to recapture his record as the oldest person to complete the more than 2,190-mile trek across 14 states. Known as “thru-hikers,” these backpackers walk the entire trail within a 12-month period. Each week, I’d search online for videos showing Greybeard’s journey, a pep in his step or the grueling grind across the miles. The current recordholder, M.J. “Nimblewill Nomad” Eberhart, who knew my parents, achieved this feat at age 83 in 2021, taking the honor from Greybeard, who set a record at age 82 in 2017. I wasn’t surprised to learn the two men were close friends; they even look alike, with their long white beards and sparkling eyes.

But Monday morning this week, with only 142 miles remaining, Greybeard announced he was heading home for rest in Tennessee. He’d spent a night in a Maine hospital due to complications from a fall and then learned his mother-in-law had died. “When it rains unfortunate incidents, it seems to come in buckets,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

These age-defying records and pivots felt personal.

It wasn’t accidental how the Appalachian Trail became my family’s backbone.

When I was about 7, my parents brought my younger siblings and me to Springer Mountain in Georgia, our daypacks filled with cans of Vienna sausages, boxes of raisins, a change of clothes and a sleeping bag.

“If you continue on this trail, you can walk all the way to Maine!” my dad said, pointing northward.

The path felt like a magical forested portal far from coastal Alabama where we lived. As a child, I couldn’t imagine how hiking would shape my parents as they got older: their physical fitness, spiritual connection to nature and access to community — all assets in aging well, according to extensive research. But more importantly, the outdoors would help them, and ultimately me, learn to adapt to change. That’s a survival skill for us all.

With the trail name “Fairhope,” my brother Laurence became the first in our family to complete the Appalachian Trail in 1992, followed by my parents, known as “Annie and the Salesman,” in 1994. Then my sister married a thru-hiker from north Florida.

“Hiking is a walking meditation, a way to carry everything we need,” my mom told me. “We may not leave you much money, but our legacy will be lives of adventure.”

Pursuing a trifecta of long-distance hikes after the Appalachian Trail, my parents completed the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada and nearly half of the Continental Divide Trail when I had my own health crisis. An amniocentesis revealed a serious genetic defect in the chromosomes of the child I was carrying — years before the current extreme restrictions on abortion care. When my parents happened to call from a payphone near the trail, I shared my heartbreaking decision to end the pregnancy.

“We’ll find a way there,” my mom said.

I don’t remember much discussion about abortion when I was younger, and I believe the community of young hikers over many years helped shape my parents’ evolving mindsets on many issues (as well as my mom’s newfound comfort cussing with her Southern drawl).

Somehow they hitchhiked to find a rental car and drove cross-country to Warren Wilson College in western North Carolina, where I still live and teach environmental education. This is a work college where all students hold jobs on campus like farmer, fiber artist and genetics lab tech. Like the trail, it’s a place with steep learning curves.

“Sometimes you have to change course,” my mom said, “when you sense the right path to take.” While she spoke, she held my 3-year-old, who would stay home with my dad while we drove more than five hours to a hospital in Virginia.

More than a month after returning to the Continental Divide Trail, my mom came down with a severe stomach virus, which my father caught a few days later. Much like Greybeard’s pivot, they decided to pause the hike. “The trail will still be here, but mom had a feeling it was time to go home,” my dad said.

Less than a year later in 2003, my mother, 58, was killed in a cycling accident, hit by a teen driver in Fairhope, our hometown. With time and a few trial runs, my dad returned to hike for a month on the Continental Divide Trail without her.

“I was never lonely, but I missed her every day,” he said.

In 2005, wearing a reflective vest and biking on the shoulder of the road, my dad, 64, was hit and killed by another teen driver. At their gravesites, we placed two metal sculptures, the “Final Blaze,” gifts from the Appalachian Trail community, many members of whom came to shovel earth upon the graves.

Since then, I’ve corresponded with Nimblewill Nomad, the record holder and caretaker of a hostel at Flagg Mountain, the start of the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama. There he has dreams to create a community where elders who are hikers can live together in the montane longleaf pine ecosystem.

“Your parents’ heart was years ago divinely placed in trust, in a chest — yours,” he wrote to me years after their deaths.

Now 60, I have outlived my mother, and I’m also surrounded by young people — my two daughters and my students — just as my parents were on their long-distance adventures. My undergrads are rightly fearful about the climate crisis but working in community to find their way. They’ve read the research documenting how the outdoors, including urban green spaces, improves cognition, social connection and physical strength, while decreasing depression and anxiety in all ages, but especially seniors. Nature helps humans adapt to change, and not everyone has proximity to it.

My students also know the Trump administration has cut funding for and even decreased the size of our public lands. They’ve met alums with careers in conservation whose federal jobs no longer exist. And we’re still recovering here from Hurricane Helene, a devastating climate disaster almost two years ago.

But what I know for sure, I tell them, is we must join with others to protect both people and places, even when we don’t know how this path will end. That’s my parents’ legacy to me.

While prepping for classes this week, I checked updates from Greybeard, who was home under the care of his physician for exhaustion after the rugged southern mountains in Maine — but he was cleared to hike again and intended to complete the trail. Regardless of the record-breaking deadline of Sept. 6, he’s adapting to a new “finish plan” and shared this truth for us all: “Together we will conquer this seemingly impossible task.”

Mallory McDuff is the author of several books, including “Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love.” She teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College.