When I asked bare-footed and shirtless Bruce, 62, why he recycles when he’s walking at Stone Mountain, he said, “I don’t do it for other people. It’s an existentialist type of concept. You know when Mad Max drives the tanker? He isn’t doing it for anybody but him.”
The civil engineer, who goes by Brucifer, added, “I did something. I gave something back.”
Brucifer has lived in North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, and in Georgia for the past sixteen years.
“I used to hurry up and down the mountain and time it, and I realized it was pointless,” he said.
So why no shoes?
According to Brucifer, who carries an infrared thermometer, “We’re not engineered to wear shoes. Sometimes the rock gets cold and slippery or as hot as 117 degrees.” The trick is to keep moving, he said.
And before I had a chance to delve into a deeper discussion about his passion, “ancient technologies,” another regular at the mountain came up to us, and we moved along until next time.