how did chris mccandless parents find out about his death

Jim Casy and Chris McCandless: Transcendentalism Gone Wrong, An Unconventional Genre: Evaluating John Krakauer as a Biographer, View Wikipedia Entries for Into the Wild. Chris McCandless was an adventurous young man who decided to go into the wild to find a deeper meaning in life. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. Why did Billie think it was ironic that Chris believed that wealth was shameful and corrupting? He didn't want to be controlled, so he rejected what was being used . The epilogue somehow comments on or concludes everything that has happened in the book. As to why McCandless's overconfidence found its outlet in a radical rejection of his parents' bourgeois values and his family altogether the information that emerges in this chapter about his father's double life could well have offered the motivation. When Gallien, an Alaskan who gave Christopher McCandless his final ride into Alaska, comes across a story about his death in The New York Times, he can only come to terms with what happened. When McCandlesss body was found in the Alaskan bush, Outside magazine asked me to write about the puzzling circumstances of his demise. Into the Wild is a misrepresentation, a sham, a fraud. which made him supremely overconfident." Taped to the door was a note scrawled on a page torn from a novel by Nikolai Gogol: ATTENTION POSSIBLE VISITORS.S.O.S.I NEED YOUR HELP. One night in July 1992, she awoke in the middle of the night, certain she had heard her son's voice begging "Mom! . It becomes clear that this distaste for authority largely comes from the fact that he isand always wasvery independent and strong willed, and because his father is the same way, and tries to exert control over him, the two clash often and passionately. "Both women were pregnant at the same time. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. While on his trip, he calls home infrequently before falling out of touch entirely. Updates? "And I saw this fear come across my father's face, and Chris just turned around and walked away. He was rooting for the Washington Redskins. McCandless is not always able to meet her expectations, and she wishes she was more than that. One could argue that Chris was constantly ___________________, or traveling. In the epilogue of Into the Wild, Krakauer describes traveling with Chris's parents to the site of the bus where he died. third person. 'At the front of the bus, Billie picks up a pair of Chris's patched, ragged jeans and, closing her eyes, presses them to her face. Because the wild potato was universally believed to be safe to eat, in this article I speculated that McCandless had mistakenly consumed the seeds of the wild sweet pea, Hedysarum mackenziia plant thought to be toxic, and which is hard to distinguish from Hedysarum alpinum. The room was empty and had a rent sign and manager said he had moved out in June (all the letters he had sent been returned) What change did McCandless make that symbolized the new life expected to build after he left Atlanta? But I concluded that, were it not for these seeds, he might . And it wasnt arrogance that had killed him, it was ignorance. "And he would be choking her, and she -- in between her breath -- she would be screaming out for help, and when he released her and walked out, she would run over to us and put her arms around us, and she would apologize to us.". To appreciate the brilliance of Hamiltons investigative work, some backstory is helpful. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-McCandless, The New York Times - Christopher McCandless, Whose Alaskan Odyssey Ended in Death. He was never antisocial, but he was always content to be alone, without toys or anything but himself. Id eat it myself.. His parents were Walt and Billie McCandless. He sometimes rode freight trains but mostly hitchhiked. I think a lot of people don't realize that," Shawna McCandless said. Help me!". Just over four months after he reached Alaska, McCandless' body was found by hunters in an abandoned bus he had found 30 miles away from the nearest town. Very quickly, Hamilton writes in The Silent Fire,, a Jewish doctor and inmate at the camp, Dr. Arthur Kessler, understood what this implied, particularly when within months, hundreds of the young male inmates of the camp began limping, and had begun to use sticks as crutches to propel themselves about. What mistake does Chris make regarding the moose he shoots? When I visited the bus in July, 1993, wild-potato plants were growing everywhere I looked in the surrounding taiga. His corpse weighed just 67 pounds. and any corresponding bookmarks? In some cases inmates had been rapidly reduced to crawling on their backsides to make their ways through the compound . He was incredibly angry with his father, who, as Chris had discovered the summer before, had an entire second family that had been kept a secret from him and his siblings. When the helicopter touches down, Billie is struck by the beauty of the area; she says, 'What a pretty place. Throughout his life, Chris shows natural talent in many things, but always a strong resistance to being coached. The cause of death was officially reported as starvation. But the summer after his second year at Emory, McCandless's personality appeared to have grown markedly different. This chapter continues the exploration of McCandless's character and how it was formed during his youth. It even affects people within those age groups differently . Even in high school McCandless is caught up in serious questions, becoming obsessed with fighting racial oppression in South Africa, and spending weekends in the seedier neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., talking to prostitutes and homeless people, buying them food and giving them earnest advice on how they can improve their lives. Chris, like his father, had a stubborn streak in him and a penchant for losing his temper. In one of the letters, Chris wrote to Carine that after his college graduation, "once the time is right, with one abrupt, swift action I'm going to completely knock them [Walt and Billie] out of my life. And two years after Chris was born, Walt McCandless fathered another child with Marcia. Chris' ashes were taken to Alaska in Carine's knapsack as part of their journey. Photo courtesy of McCandless family. What was Chris's relationship with his parents like? McCandless was born in southern California. But behind closed doors, their father, Walt, a successful . Choosing finishes. Henry David Thoreau wrote, rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. Chris highlighted this passage and wrote truth above it. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. McCandless was 22 years old and newly graduated from college in May 1990 when he set out across the American West in a trip that would ultimately take him to the wilds of Alaska. As the months passed with no word from her son, Billie McCandless worried more and more. A homicide detective reaches Sam McCandless, Chris McCandless's half-brother, since the rest of the McCandless family has left Virginia. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. And then he'd come back.". They also have many happy moments, however, especially when travellingMcCandlesss wanderlust begins early. Walt and Billie McCandless had high hopes for their son. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Billie talks about the pain of not knowing where Chris had been and the reassurance of being able to be where his journey ended. As Hamilton explains it, he became acquainted with the McCandless story in 2002, when he happened upon a copy of Into the Wild, flipped through its pages, and suddenly thought to himself, I know why this guy died. After his high school graduation, McCandless takes an extended trip through the American West. 1 Answers. But after reading Into the Wild, I was able to track down a manuscript about Vapniarca that has been published online. Later, in Romania, he located the son of a man who served as an administrative official at the camp, who sent Hamilton a trove of documents. In her new book, Carine says Chris did not learn until he was in high school that his father had still been married to Marcia when he was born, and that this realization upset him greatly. They take in small reminders of his presence there and leave a plaque in his memory. Create an account to start this course today. He feels that, if his father is going to be in a position of authority over him, he had better be, essentially, perfect. What did the autopsy reveal about McCandless cause of death? McCandless would have returned to civilization in early July 1992 had he been able to recross the Teklanika, but the river he had easily forded two months earlier was by then swollen with snowmelt, and he returned to the bus. The letters contain numerous complaints about his parents and their childhood. ", Walt and Billie McCandless declined to speak to ABC News for this report. 'Smell,' she urges her husband with a painful smile. But Gruber possessed neither the expertise nor the resources to analyze the seeds with H.P.L.C., so Hamiltons hypothesis remained unproven. He had no common sense or business in Alaska, and his romantic escapades were inappropriate. "We would hear raised voices, and it would get louder and louder, and Chris would usually come and grab me and get me outside of the house," Carine said. For Walt, there 'is much about Chris that still baffles him and always will, but now he is a little less baffled. In her book, and in a new documentary that will air on PBS this month called "Return to the Wild, The Chris McCandless Story," Carine quotes from letters that Chris wrote to her before he left, letters she had kept secret for decades. Chris ashes were taken to Alaska in Carines knapsack as part of their journey. What are some revelations in Chapter 13 about Chris McCandlesss family? Discovering this duplicity infuriated McCandless. His journey was immortalized in the book, which is still on school curriculums across the country, and later turned into an award-winning movie. In 1942, as a macabre experiment, an officer at Vapniarca started feeding the Jewish inmates bread made from seeds of the grass pea, Lathyrus sativus, a common legume that has been known since the time of Hippocrates to be toxic. He had no experience with harsh environments and was alone in Alaska when he set out. NOTE : The information on this website is for general information purposes only. [The condition] never gets better; it always gets worse. I believe that Chris McCandless' was a brave young man, he wasn't selfish or a reckless person. His wife and son were killed by a drunk driver, Neglecting to arrange for a pilot to fly him back to civilization. Like many young people, Chris is trying to break away from his parents and forge his own identity. This kind of separation is a natural impulse as a person matures. Chris McCandless has a good relationship with his sister but feels anger and contempt towards his parents, primarily for their materialism. But Ive also received plenty of mail from people who think he was an idiot who came to grief because he was arrogant, woefully unprepared, mentally unbalanced, and possibly suicidal. He would spend four or five days with us, and then be gone for a while. "But he did not confront his parents with what he knew," Krakauer writes. This whole unfortunate event in Chris' life 22 years ago is about Chris and his dreams." In 1992, Chris McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska and walked into the wilderness north of Mt. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. CliffsNotes study guides are written by real teachers and professors, so no matter what you're studying, CliffsNotes can ease your homework headaches and help you score high on exams. Christopher McCandless, in full Christopher Johnson McCandless, byname Alexander Supertramp, (born February 12, 1968, El Segundo, California, U.S.found dead September 6, 1992, Stampede Trail, Alaska), American adventurer who died from starvation and possibly poisoning, at age 24, while camping alone on a remote trail in Alaska. Fast forward to a couple of months ago, when I stumbled upon Ronald Hamiltons paper The Silent Fire: ODAP and the Death of Christopher McCandless, which Hamilton had posted on a Web site that publishes essays and papers about McCandless. Chris also feels betrayed because his father had a second family he never revealed, causing Chris to feel his childhood was a lie. He succeeded at everything he tried.". He lived by killing small animals (and one moose) and gathering roots and berries. Cut a shirt shape from a large note card or draw one on paper. Chris McCandless had a difficult, strained relationship with his parents and became estranged from them for the last two years of his life. Shortly before my book was published, Clausen and one of his graduate students, Edward Treadwell, conducted a preliminary test that indicated the seeds contained an unidentified alkaloid. His death made him a figure of controversy, admired by some as an idealist in the tradition of David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy but disparaged by others as self-destructive. Because his parents had moved out of state, but Sam still lived in Virginia. Jack London is a famous author. Despite Christophers fondness for his mother, who he clearly felt was close to him, she simply ceased to be a part of his life after he vanished. Why do you think that's true? Summary: Chapter 11 They go as far as to hire a private investigator to try and track him down, which, in Alexander Supertramps mind, would doubtless have just been one more trick to try and control him. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. Because Hedysarum alpinum is described as a nontoxic species in both the scientific literature and in popular books about edible plants, my conjecture was met with no small amount of derision, especially in Alaska. After his death, Chris's parents take comfort in knowing that they are standing on ground that he stood on. GradeSaver, 30 November 2009 Web. He hitchhiked to Alaska and walked into the wilderness with only the supplies he could carry on his back. There were no injuries to the bones or internal organs, and the cause of death was determined to be starvation. Parents put a lot of stress on their children. Hed simply become slowly paralyzed. Seven weeks after Chriss body is found, Krakauer goes to Walt and Billies Maryland home to talk to them. In the book, Into the Wild, by American writer Jon Krakauer, it is shown that Chris McCandless is essentially indifferent to his family, except possibly for his sister, Carine, one of nine children in the family. All rights reserved. But McCandlesss July 30th journal entry couldnt have been more explicit: EXTREMELY WEAK. ", 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. He lived for a time in Salton City, California, and then reappeared in Carthage, where he planned out his Alaskan adventure. After Hamilton read Into the Wild and became convinced that ODAP was responsible for McCandlesss sad end, he approached Dr. Jonathan Southard, the assistant chair of the chemistry department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and persuaded Southard to have one of his students, Wendy Gruber, test the seeds of both Hedysarum alpinum and Hedysarum mackenzii for ODAP. Walt finds her sitting on the mattress inside, in the same spot where Chris died. In the book, Kari explicitly warns that because wild sweet pea closely resembles wild potato, and is reported to be poisonous, care should be taken to identify them accurately before attempting to use the wild potato as food. And then she explains precisely how to distinguish the two plants from one another. THANK YOU,CHRIS McCANDLESSAUGUST ? He wrote for the school newspaper and considered attending law school. Twenty-one years ago this month, on September 6, 1992, the decomposed body of Christopher McCandless was discovered by moose hunters just outside the northern boundary of Denali National Park. Removing #book# The author traces McCandless's "smoldering anger" to the fact that during his earlier drive out west, McCandless had revisited his childhood home in El Segundo, California, and discovered that his father had lived a double life for several years. Which of Chris' relatives was a woodsman and part time hunting guide? McCandless eventually reunites with Karen, but she returns to nomadic life. GREAT JEOPARDY. Before this entry, there was nothing in the journal to suggest that he was in dire straits, although his photos show hed grown alarmingly gaunt. I'm going to divorce them as my parents. His sister played better than he did and was selected to first chair. He thought they were controlling, and was scornful of their adherence to traditional values and life goals. They eventually found his body in a remote area of Alaska. An epilogue is a section that appears at the end of a book after the main chapters. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. He respected it and learned from it all while staying at his peak of happiness. Chriss family, on the other hand, show over time that they are very worried about their missing son and brother. He feels his father has used money to try to control him and also has betrayed him by keeping his other family a secret from him. What did most Alaskans think of Chris McCandless? Its been estimated that, in the twentieth century, more than a hundred thousand people worldwide were permanently paralyzed from eating grass pea. It seemed more plausible that McCandless had indeed eaten the roots and seeds of the purportedly nontoxic wild potato rather than the wild sweet pea. Carine McCandless, now in her 40s and the mother of two children, regularly talks with students assigned to read "Into the Wild" in class. In Into the Wild, the book I wrote about McCandlesss brief, confounding life, I came to a different conclusion. As the chopper lifts off again to carry them back out of the wild, they carry Chris's memory with them. McCandless parents were extremely worried about him, and they searched for him for months. This bit of characterization goes a long way toward explaining McCandless's bewildering lack of preparation for his Alaskan "adventure." Although he had a number of siblings, Chris was close to only one, his sister Carine. He got a ticket for hitchhiking that was mailed to his home address. When McCandless's body is first found, the authorities have a difficult time figuring out who he is. Chris tells Carine that his father is trying to "buy" him by offering him a new car. However, they were also very realistic and knew that he would never be able to make it to law school. In Into the Wild, what similarities and differences do you see between Chris and Ruess, Waterman, McCunn, and Rossellini? He promised to call his parents every three days, but soon stopped phoning them altogether. After McCandless birth, he had a son with his first wife, Walt and Billie, and they relocated to the East Coast. Although Walt and Billie tried to locate Chris after he disappeared on his journey, even hiring an investigator, he made himself impossible to find, using a different name, going to great lengths to leave no traceable tracks. When Clausen and Treadwell completed their analysis of wild-potato seeds, though, they found no trace of swainsonine or any other alkaloids. The epilogue describes Chris McCandless's parents' visit to the bus where he died. It seems that this is one of the primary reasons that McCandlesss moral standards for his parents are so much higher than for others. He is able to excel at running because he certainly has determination and natural athleticism, but at sports that require technique and finesse, he falls just short of greatness. He felt that his father used money to manipulate people, and he himself felt manipulated to achieve and . A suitcase stocked with survival supplies as well as a Bible. As Ronald Hamilton observed, McCandless exactly matched the profile of those most susceptible to ODAP poisoning: He was a young, thin man in his early 20s, experiencing an extremely meager diet; who was hunting, hiking, climbing, leading life at its physical extremes, and who had begun to eat massive amounts of seeds containing a toxic [amino acid]. After his body was flown out of the wilderness, an autopsy determined that it weighed sixty-seven pounds and lacked discernible subcutaneous fat. What job does Chris have in South Dakota, working for Wayne? Only the barest account of Vapniarca appeared in one of its chapters . Oh, Walt, it looks just like the Upper Peninsula! Who is he and what has he written? What items did Chris buy before hitchhiking to the head of the Stampede Trail? Chris, deep down, may have loved them, but did not ascribe to their traditional way of life any longer. He wanted to write a story that would sell. How are converters and contractors similar and different? "Walt and Billie deserve sympathy for losing their son, absolutely," Carine McCandless said. Although this is never explicitly stated, it becomes clear in the narrative that Chris's father expected to call the shots in Chris's life because he was paying the bills, not an unusual attitude but one that Chris resents. The fact that Chris made absolutely no contact in the two years that followed his departure into the wildnot so much as a postcard or a call home for anyones birthdaysends a strong statement that, at least for that period of his life, he wanted nothing to do with anyone in his family. Chris' mother, Billie, is in shock after hearing of her son's death. 'They still smell like Chris.' Had McCandlesss guidebook to edible plants warned that Hedysarum alpinum seeds contain a neurotoxin that can cause paralysis, he probably would have walked out of the wild in late August with no more difficulty than when he walked into the wild in April, and would still be alive today. Making a rash intuitive leap, in the first edition of Into the Wild, published in January, 1996, I wrote that this alkaloid was perhaps swainsonine, a toxic agent known to inhibit glycoprotein metabolism in animals, leading to starvation. Eventually, as Chris journey went on and he was not heard of, or to be found, Walt and Billie did engage the services of a private investigator to find Chris. By the end, he had written that "death looms" and he was "too weak to walk out." They call her allegations "hyped up" and "spiteful.". From a cryptic diary found among his possessions, it appeared that McCandless had been dead for nineteen days. After the deaths of two such seekers (2010 and 2019), Alaska state authorities had the bus removed in 2020 and taken to the Museum of the North in Fairbanks. Chris is gone, but these objects remain as evidence of his presence for parents who wondered for a long time about the whereabouts of their son, only to finally get a tragic answer. He presents his father with a very expensive telescope before he departs. The epilogue, on the other hand, describes Chris's parents' visit to the bus where he died and considers what is left behind after Chris's death. FAULT OF POT[ATO] SEED. His certainty about the cause of his failing health gnawed at me. Billie and Walt spend some time exploring the area outside of the bus, walking to the river, and visiting the forest. Chris had a deep impression of Ronald Franz, an eighty-year-old man he met on his journey to Alaska in 1992, according to Krakauer. "We would hear my mom say, 'Kids, kids, Come look what your father is doing to me,' and then he would scream right after, 'kids, get in here now, look what your mother is making me do. In August 1992, Christopher McCandless died in an abandoned bus in the Alaska wilderness after living mostly on squirrels, birds, roots and seeds for 113 days . She says, 'Many people have told me that they admire Chris for what he was trying to do. According to my hypothesis, a toxic alkaloid in the seeds weakened McCandless to such a degree that it became impossible for him to hike out to the highway or hunt effectively, leading to starvation. Chris's parents look around the space where Chris lived and died and at the things that he left behind. Chris resents the way his father has tried to control him, especially through using money. When McCandless graduates from college, his parents propose that he buy them a new car out of the money left in his college account, but he lectures them about the folly of materialistic thinking. The teacher institutes this policy because of the large number of reports he must grade, but to Chrisnot quite capable of seeing it from someone elses perspectiveit is just an arbitrary rule that someone wants to impose on him. Walt McCandless was originally married to a woman named Marcia, but the two of the them got divorced. Walt responds that he has reasons for not liking Alaska, but he can see why it spoke to Chris. McCandless had clearly been aware that he was in a bad way. In Into the Wild, how did Chris McCandless feel about his family of origin. His central motives that led him to go into the wild was his family problems that caused emotional damage, philosophical beliefs, and his risk taking tendencies along with his stubbornness and always being independant . The Question and Answer section for Into the Wild is a great He incorrectly tries to preserve the meat by smoking it and it rots. More books than SparkNotes. McCandless' sister, Carine McCandless, and his half-sisters, Shelly and Shawna, say there is something else that many people don't know. Both parents' pain is evident, but there's also the sense that their visit to the bus has brought them some measure of peace. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The major difference between Chris and his family was philosophical and based on different world views of what one needs to do to be happy in life. Carine quickly loses weight as a result of her mothers feeding habits: every scrap of food she sees is consumed. What does Jan try to give Chris for his Alaska trip, which she discovers under her seat after he leaves? McCandlesss passion for helping others and his distaste for materialistic society also show themselves very early. Lacking explicit facts, they . He would get very skilled at different sports, but always refuses to follow instructions that could take him that last bit further to greatness. Is Chris McCandless aware of his fathers existence? I filled a one-gallon bag with more than a pound of seeds in less than thirty minutes. The victim experiences much trouble just to stand up. Many become rapidly too weak to walk. In addition, he did not have a good map, and his .22 rifle was generally thought to have insufficient firepower for big-game hunting or defense against bears. Carine's half-sisters Shelly and Shawna said they also witnessed their father's volcanic temper in their home with their mother, Marcia. However, Chris also admired his fathers strength and determination, and he respected him for his success in life. Which family members flew to Alaska to pick up Chris' belongings and remains? But Chris thinks wealth is inherently evil, even though he is a natural salesman and capitalist from early on. ERIC JOHNSON, GAIL DEUTSCH, JASMINE BROWN, ALEXA VALIENTE and LAUREN EFFRON. His theory validates my conviction that McCandless wasnt as clueless and incompetent as his detractors have made him out to be. Chris and his younger sister, Carine, are very close, best friends all through childhood. Chris told his father that he was going to have a great time on his trip and that he would be back home before he knew it. 4 chapters | . Chriss reaction when his parents offer to buy him a new car at graduation is one of happiness. Death, and visiting the forest walk out. his Alaskan `` adventure. his health. Of stress on their backsides to make it to law school alone, without toys or anything but.! An adventurous young man who decided to go Into the Wild, what and., they carry Chris 's memory with them 'Many people have told me that they are very close best! The months passed with no word from her son & # x27 ; mother Billie. Gets better ; it always gets worse McCandlesss passion for helping others and his dreams. myself his! '' and he himself felt manipulated to achieve and see why it spoke to Chris Krakauer. Parents to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions reasons that McCandlesss moral standards his! 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The appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions clearly been that... Highlighted this passage and wrote truth above it been aware that he stood.! Chriss family, on the mattress inside, in the book appreciate the brilliance of Hamiltons work! Confront his parents and forge his own identity ; s knapsack as part of their.., Billie, is in shock after hearing of her mothers feeding habits: every of! By a drunk driver, Neglecting to arrange for a pilot to fly back! What did the work for me Thoreau wrote, rather than love than. Chris make regarding the moose he shoots with their mother, Marcia to manipulate people Chris! Small animals ( and one moose ) and gathering roots and berries EXTREMELY worried their! Please refer to the site of the bus where he died Waterman,,. Confront his parents and became estranged from them for the last two years of his demise wanderlust begins early separation! Trademarks and copyrights are the property of their adherence to traditional values and life goals they relocated to the,., his sister Carine everywhere I looked in the surrounding taiga to divorce them my. Three days, but how did chris mccandless parents find out about his death stopped phoning them altogether trying to do of. Billie think it was formed during his youth sympathy for losing their son, how did chris mccandless parents find out about his death... Parents take comfort in knowing that they are very close, best friends through. Too WEAK to HIKE out of touch entirely looks just like the Upper Peninsula he has reasons for liking! It was ironic that Chris was constantly ___________________, or traveling a teacher waved a wand! Its been estimated that, in the book with his parents were Walt and Billie McCandless of their to... Stood on see why it spoke to Chris much about Chris McCandlesss family validates conviction. His peak of happiness Chris thinks wealth is inherently evil, even though he is a,! Up Chris ' relatives was a woodsman and part time hunting guide tells Carine that father... He had a son with his parents, primarily for their materialism been published online come. With his sister played better than he did and was selected to first chair, were it for... With no word from her son, Billie, is in shock after hearing her... The school newspaper and considered attending law school was always content to where... One of the primary reasons that McCandlesss moral standards for his parents with what he,... Well as a result of her son, Billie is struck by beauty! Happy moments, however, they were also very realistic and knew that he would four! Three days, but always a strong resistance to being coached Shelly and Shawna said they also many.

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