September 29, 2025

The 60 or so miles from the Idaho Falls airport to Alta is flat, mostly pasture and brush. The Grand Tetons rise to the east. We chugged into Driggs, Idaho, center of the Teton Valley, on the local highway, U.S. 33, which becomes the main street. Then it’s six miles across the state line on winding gravel roads to Kathleen’s and Steve’s place.

Kathleen, our youngest, and Steve got married in May. They love mountains, forests, trails, ski slopes, crystal-clear trout streams. They’re OK with the three or four feet of snow and stretches of subzero cold they get here. The payback is the soaring Teton peaks, the glowing stands of aspens, the crisp air of high altitudes, the overwhelming presence of nature.

After getting to their place in Alta we walked a bit with Charlie, their Great Pyrenees/Plott Hound mix, along the pastures. A couple of gorgeous jet-black horses, curious, trotted over to the fence and stared serenely at Charlie, who stared back. They seemed to know each other. Kathleen patted their noses.

Sandy and I drove past Driggs a dozen years ago, a road trip from Breckenridge, Colo., to Ennis, Mont. You see the sign, blink, and you’re past it. It’s a business junction for the area potato farmers, but also a gateway to the Tetons and the Targhee ski resort on the Wyoming side. Kathleen and Steve can see the ski trails from their east-facing deck.

The majestic Tetons overpower the valley. Long hills rise to the mountains covered in aspen, now golden at their fall foliage peak. The stunning beauty of the place has in recent years brought in an affluent crowd, skiers and well-off nature lovers and retirees who bought farm properties, inflating prices on both the Wyoming and Idaho sides. Medium housing costs are above a half-million.

Driggs is a business town, heavy equipment and construction mostly, warehouses, small machine shops. There isn’t much else for miles across the flat plains to the mountain ridges that surround Teton Valley. The Tetons and the ski resort are the draw that keeps the town lively even through the deep winters.

Downtown is busy, traffic backs up on weekday mornings. Main Street has the Teton Center, which combines city hall and a Seniors Center with a museum that offers brochures on the local attractions, skiing, hiking, fishing, camping. Driggs has a natural foods store, a dozen restaurants, a chic coffee shop called “Wydaho,” a small hospital where Katheen, an R.N., works.

We walked through a farmer’s market, booths set up along Main Street selling vegetables and fruit but also the eclectic mix of stuff found at upscale farmer’s markets, locally made jewelry, artwork, casual clothing. I didn’t see the mass-manufactured teeshirts with Bible verses or the scented candles from China offered at last week’s Cowan, Tenn., festival.

For the fun of it we had lunch at the Seniors Center, free for Sandy and me, underage Kathleen and Steve paid six bucks. The big room was filled with oldsters socializing. We picked up sandwiches and sat with a couple of guys, Steve, originally from Houston, and Michael, who wore a “garlicologist” shirt. He and his wife sold home-grown garlic at the farmer’s market.

Michael said he was from Connecticut. His odyssey to Driggs was the usual kind, worked here and there, moved around, finally looked for peace and quiet. “Just about everyone you meet here is from someplace else,” he said, grinning.

Everyone was in a good mood, as seniors usually are; we stayed for five games of bingo. A cheerful guy, Jack, called the numbers as the ladies at the dozen tables chatted. He cracked jokes when they asked him to repeat himself. The winners were thrilled, we came up empty.

Amid the friendliness, no mistake: this is a tiny spot, a blip on the vast map of the Mountain West. On the Wyoming side, Alta is an unincorporated place, a tiny school, fire station, and library, but no stores, no sidewalks. Just east of the last homestead is Bureau of Land Management wilderness and the Targhee National Forest, which stretches up to the sheer walls of the Tetons.

It’s wild country. Steve told me of a near-meeting with an adult black bear, he guessed 300 pounds, on a trail. He carries bear spray on hikes, it’s more effective in a confrontation than a firearm, he says. A large bear hit with multiple .357 Magnum rounds will keep moving, but the hot pepper spray stings the bear’s eyes and nose, turning it away. “You spray in a back-and-forth pattern from the ground and move up,” he explained.

Sightings of bears, deer, elk, and moose are a regular experience at their place on the fringe of the BLM land. A few homes are scattered in the area, but no human light breaks the night blackness. Around 4 A.M. I stepped outside, the sky burst with glorious starlight. I remembered I was far from home. 

Kathleen had planned a horseback-riding outing. We drove south into the plains to a ranch, mounted up and, after some coaching, trotted off on a hilly forest trail. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been on a horse.

My horse, Norman, bucked along behind the leader, Braden. He picked up speed on the steep stretches, as if enjoying himself. I yanked the reins. “He’s got the trail memorized,” Braden yelled back. I leaned forward in my cowboy moment. At the hilltop Braden paused and pointed. “There’s Victor,” he said. The town of Victor lay a few miles south, a half-dozen streets breaking the prairie.

Autumn had settled in, the aspens shedding, the ground carpeted in their gold. At dawn the sun glowed over the Tetons through the pure Rocky Mountain air. No sound broke the peace of this remote spot. The locals knew winter soon would close in. Steve had stacked a half-cord of firewood, fuel for the wood stove, on the deck. “We’ll need at least another cord,” he said.

I admired the hardiness of the local folks, getting ready for the rough season. We’ll get out of Alta before the blizzards start and endure our sixth meek Southern winter. But this is a rugged, beautiful place. We’ll come back. That is the hope.   

September 22, 2025

The corruption that passes for national leadership didn’t exactly chase us, but we were relieved to leave town. We plodded along U.S. 76 through Georgia places we’ve visited before. We pushed into the southwest corner of North Carolina between Murphy and Wolf Creek, near the Tennessee state line and just past an unincorporated place called Hothouse.

We looked for a destination far from the headlines about the strangling of the First Amendment, although you never escape. We had talked about the Cowan, Tenn., Fall Heritage Festival. It’s been held for years in Sandy’s hometown, which the rest of the year is one main street, an austere network of residential neighborhoods, a few stores. There’s a railroad museum. Freight trains pass through a dozen times each day.

In 90 minutes we crossed the Chattooga River into Georgia and pulled over in Clayton. We wanted breakfast. The Clayton Café wasn’t open, a passerby directed us a mile south to the Rusty Bike, done up floor to ceiling in biker gear, photos of James Dean, other biker heroes. A poster advertises “Harley Country,” another highlights Sturgis, America’s South Dakota biker paradise. The servers were all young women, the patrons all the seventies-plus set.

Staying on 76 we passed through Hiawassee, which abuts Lake Chatuge, and Young Harris, site of Young Harris College, and into North Carolina. Crossing into Tennessee we cruised by the gorgeous Ocoee River. Beyond Cleveland is I-24 through Chattanooga, then 45 miles to Monteagle Mountain and Sewanee, site of the stately Gothic campus of the University of the South.

I recalled then that it had been an even 50 years ago this month since I first visited these parts. I arrived in Nashville in July ’75 for my first post-Marine Corps job. My boss then was renting a house in Sewanee and in September invited me down for a weekend.

We descended six miles down the north side of the mountain to Cowan, passing Sandy’s old neighborhood. There’s always a bit of a pang, although her only family remaining are at peace in the cemetery. Festival traffic already was crawling up Main Street.

The highlight here is the Franklin House, an island of grace amidst the wounded and struggling local businesses. Rachel, the owner, is an artist in multiple media, oil, watercolor, acrylic, others. She bought the old bed and breakfast, renovated it and in time created a piazza, filled with her rich, dreamlike creations, flourishes of color, mood, fantasy. A grand piano stands in the lobby.

The festival, a “celebration of life in the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau” opened Friday evening. Vendors had deployed dozens of booths along the tracks, offering the usual: quilts, scented candles and soaps, hoodies bearing Christian slogans and Bible verses, burnt-wood engravings. We passed racks of preserved fruit and vegetables, knockoff purses.

I noticed a new one, “galvanized creations,” which are engravings of various things, like smiling faces and the Tennessee “Power T,” cut from tin sheets. Among the rows of tees was one bearing the warning, “Sometimes I have to tell myself it’s not worth the jail time.”

As darkness gathered the bands tuned up, including a rock group that played encores of “Stop Dragging My Heart Around.”

The food booths advertised smashburgers and hoagies, funnel cakes, felafels, sandwiches. We pressed on past the “ultimate fudge,” shaved ice, freeze-dried snacks, and frozen chocolate dipped cheesecake, a slice of cheesecake coated in chocolate syrup and impaled on a stick.      

The next morning, Saturday, was warm. We tramped nearly a mile to the cemetery to get photos of the headstone marking the grave of Sandy’s cousin, who was interred there a couple of years ago, although she lived most of her life in Michigan. We searched without luck for the grandparents’ graves, scrutinizing hundreds of headstones.

We were the only visitors, the place was in its normal state, silence. The cemetery’s rich green merged with the cultivated fields that reach miles to the dark silhouette of the Cumberland Plateau, which extends northeast to the Blue Ridge and southwest into Alabama. We gave up on the search and hoofed it slowly back to town.

We seemed to step back in time. Sandy, her eye always sharp for a familiar face and some not so familiar, recognized a former high-school classmate on the sidewalk near the festival. They chatted, replaying the decades. Then she met a former sister-in-law, her older brother’s ex-wife, who now works at the bed and breakfast.

The town seemed to be grinding toward a grim future, like many out-of-the-way Southern places. Some homes along the side streets were well-kept, but sat alongside others overgrown with weeds, their windows cracked, porches piled with broken furniture, lawn tools, bicycles, and other junk. A faded “Trump 2020” sign hung in one ramshackle place. The street asphalt had been patched and instead of getting new paving, was patched again.

It grew unseasonably hot, high 80s. The festival crowd was back, picking over the merchandise but, it appeared, not buying much. In my prejudiced observation, they went through the motions, mentally budgeting some festival spending as they sensed the onset of the Trump Recession. These were small-town and rural folks in an economically hard-hit place.

We drove back up the mountain to Sewanee and across the campus to the iconic 50-foot-high whitewashed cross that overlooks the valley, to the northern reaches of Franklin and Grundy counties. A few others sat on grass, enjoying the view and the late-afternoon cooling. I had been there dozens of times, but still felt the sublime tranquility of the place.

We stopped at Lake Cheston a mile or so from the main campus, where Sandy swam as a teenager. I walked the woodland lake trail, taking in the silence. A few students splashed in the water, a young guy reeled in a small bass and tossed it back.

I looked for the house I stayed at all those 50 years ago, now hidden behind forest canopy and new campus buildings, most likely now owned by some professor. Fifty years. The world is a different place. But then life moves on, peace will return. These rushed days were our retreat. We headed back to Franklin House for one more quiet night.  

September 15, 2025

We sometimes imagine ourselves doing great things: curing cancer, ending gun violence, inspiring hope when all seems bleak. Short of that, we try to live good lives, practicing kindness, respecting others, summoning courage when courage is needed. In the meantime we have to get the garage door fixed.

Homeownership conveys the satisfaction of fixing up your place. The owner indulges his or her tastes in choosing furniture, wall décor, color—the presentation of the home. Yet the owner lives in a nest of machines. All of them, the HVAC system, water heater, washer/dryer, dishwasher, toilet, everything else, eventually fail. Someone must be called to fix or replace them.

Until we moved to our present home five years ago, we never had a garage. For 42 years our cars stood exposed to winter cold and snow, the windshield, doors, and windows coated with ice. In summer they absorbed the glare of the sun, the interior brought to broiling, the seats and steering wheel almost too hot to touch.

So the garage attached to our home here is a bonus, a kind of toy. If it’s raining when we’re nearing the house we’ll click the remote, pull into the garage, and step out untouched.

The garage now is nearly ubiquitous in suburban home design. The two-car version can consume one-third of the home’s square footage, looming over the driveway, making the structure appear larger, but the actual living space smaller. Accommodating cars is as large a factor in the design as accommodating human beings. Then too, it’s ideal for old furniture, lawn tools, boxes of miscellaneous stuff, whatever would go in a basement or attic.

Obviously the garage door is critical. It’s pleasant to push a switch, lit by a faint green light, and hear the low creaking of the door sliding open, then press it again to close it.

Until last week. I pressed the switch. The door stopped halfway up. I pressed the switch again. The door closed. On a second try the door opened to two-thirds up and stopped again. I looked at the switch. The green glow indicating power was out. I opened the fuse box and turned off the fuse marked “garage,” then turned it back on. The door opened all the way. I pressed the switch again, the door closed. One of those odd power glitches?

The next day the door opened halfway and stalled. Again I turned the fuse off then on. The door did not move. Suddenly the light returned, I hit the switch, the door opened, then closed. The next day, same thing, the door opened halfway, I hit the fuse, tried the switch, the door opened fully and closed again. Then it stalled again halfway up. It was time for an expert.

I called the utility company that under a maintenance contract sends an electrician out annually to inspect our wiring. I explained the problem, mentioning “garage door” at least twice. I’m sure I did. The next day a technician, Dave, arrived.

I pushed the switch to demonstrate. The door worked perfectly, opening and closing with no stalling. Dave watched and nodded. “We don’t do garage doors,” he said.

“Well, the switch isn’t working,” I said. “It goes in and out.” Dave nodded again “Yeah, but you need a garage door guy. I can only tell there’s nothing wrong with the fuse. It must be the motor.” He pointed to the boxlike unit suspended above between the door channels. “You’ll need someone to look at it. But I have to charge you a service charge for the visit.”

I ground my teeth a bit, but paid $49.00 for a tidbit of information but no actual help.  I rifled through a kitchen drawer looking for the garage door paperwork. I found a yellowed manual marked “Chamberlain,” the manufacturer. Someone there explained that they make the units but don’t install them. She gave me a couple of local numbers. I called the first, no answer.

For a $149.00 service charge, the second company, Elite, sent two guys out, Reid and Jacob. I offered coffee. Reid looked up at the system.

“It’s either the switch or the motherboard,” Reid said. He removed the switch. “This is old, I’d say 2015.” He tried replacing it with a new one. “Not compatible, but yours is still good. Your problem is the motherboard.

“You can call Chamberlain and give them the serial number and they’ll sell you a new board for about $50.00 and you can replace the old one yourself. Or we can install a new system and control unit, a better-quality model.” Jacob worked up an estimate on his tablet. That would be $982.00 with one remote, plus tax. A second remote would be another $75.00.

I had braced myself, guessing maybe $500.00-$600.00. Who knows what a garage door control unit cost?  I stared into space for a moment.

Reid was understanding. He motioned at my unit. “That’s a Home Depot controller. You can go there and get one for a couple of hundred dollars. They install them for a charge. But since you’re paying our service charge we’ll oil the rollers and channels.

“Really, the new Chamberlain board is not hard to install. You turn three screws, take the old one out and stick the new one in. But call us if you want us to put in a new system.”

I paid the $149.00 charge and said thanks. They left. I dragged my ladder under the unit and climbed up. I saw the three screws. Then I knew, no way would I try fixing it myself.

We drove over to Lowe’s and found a sales guy, Dimitry. I explained the problem and the Elite solution. “A thousand dollars?” he asked. “Wow. The Chamberlain unit is $219.00 with two remotes. Installation is $179.00, and they’ll program the remotes.”

I got my 10 percent military discount. We hauled the box home, I dragged it into the garage. We had spent around $625.00. The Elite quote came to $1,209.00. Looks like a deal.

The Lowe’s installers, John and Jordan, showed up the next day. In 45 minutes the system was installed. I pushed the new switch, the door slid smoothly open and then closed. They waved and headed to their next job. “We’ll be in Atlanta tomorrow,” John said.

We got through another mundane homeowner chore, frustrating, time-consuming, not unique or original. Then I thought of the expertise and the patience of all the people I dealt with. They worked hard and well for me, their impatient customer. They showed up. They freed us for more important things. That was the deal.   

September 8, 2025

The chart on the wall at Passport Health offered a question: “What are the most dangerous animals in the world? It listed them: Mosquitoes (725,000 human deaths/year); other humans (450,000); and so on, including snakes, dogs, tsetse flies, scorpions, crocodiles, down to deer, which kill about 130 people each year by colliding with cars. So don’t hit one!

We were at the place because our Vietnam-Cambodia trip is four months away. You don’t want malaria or Japanese encephalitis, typhoid fever or poliomyetis (polio). You want to avoid rabies, hepatitis, and chikungunya (what’s that?). You want protection.

Information about vaccinations is complicated. You need the injections and/or pills. The family doctor isn’t sure, the pharmacy isn’t sure. Google isn’t sure. A doctor referred us to Passport Health, a private company that has the information and charges for it.

Years ago I went to Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico for work. I don’t recall whether I got some specific vaccinations. Of course I was younger. The standard guidance is “don’t drink the water.” I didn’t but still got sick.

Since the covid pandemic, vaccination has become a nasty political hobbyhorse. Ivy, the nurse we talked to, a former ICU staffer, walked us through our vaccination history, starting with smallpox and polio—we have the childhood scars—to tetanus and MMR (measles, mumps, rubella).  She tapdanced around the covid-19 shot, which incites rightwing outrage. “You don’t have to get it,” she said, probably wondering if we were Republicans.

But the world is a dangerous place. Ticks are out there. Lyme disease, caused by a tick bite, is treatable, but may linger for years if not caught in time. A fellow I know was bitten by a Lone Star tick in the Virginia mountains. He developed alpha-gal syndrome or AGS, an incurable condition that causes hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and low blood pressure. Victims develop a severe allergy to mammalian foods, beef, pork, lamb, venison, and for some, dairy products.

Then mosquitos. Wherever you are, except in Antarctica and other cold places like Iceland, you find mosquitos. Why did God make them, we sometimes wonder. The literature teaches that 3,700 species of mosquitos exist, which sounds like way too many. Some 700 million people develop mosquito-borne diseases each year, leading to those hundreds of thousands of deaths.

You learn that mosquitos do serve a purpose, as food for other creatures. Because they breed in water, dragonflies and other water-friendly bugs eat them. So do fish, ducks, other birds, bats, toads, and frogs. If mosquitos didn’t exist, those species would have to eat other things.

We know mosquitos are annoying in the backyard or in the woods. They chase your picnic guests inside and ruin your camping trip. They’re everywhere, in the swamps, in the mountains. When my son Michael and I visited Canada’s Northwest Territory, we ventured a walk in the woods. In ten minutes we were driven back to the car, waving our arms.

Our camp was on an island in the middle of a lake. The bugs followed. In our tent at night we hung a smoldering aromatic repellent from the frame. When the flame went out they attacked. Ivy, our Passport Health staff person, talked about the Louisiana bayous, where she’s camped. Just as bad.

The mosquito scenario is scary: yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, chikungunya, dengue fever, malaria, zika virus. Vaccines are available for yellow fever, chikungunya, and the Japanese encephalitis. But the main defense: don’t get bitten. Use percaridin or permethrin. You can buy clothing treated with permethrin, when you get dressed you’re applying your repellent.

We duck disease one way or another every day. Covid-19 exploded five years ago and as of last month has killed 1.2 million Americans (of 7.1 million fatalities worldwide). Today some folks shrug. They believe the government was lying, making law-abiding citizens wear masks, restricting freedom. 

We march forward. The trip is a project, an adventure, a change from driving the interstate to Tennessee and Virginia.

Some people love Caribbean cruises to those little islands, going ashore and shopping for souvenirs. The locals survive on selling souvenirs; the souvenir shops are mostly owned by the cruise lines.  Most of the time you’re on the ship, eating, drinking, sitting.

We know folks who love European river cruises, up the Rhine, the Danube, the Seine. They see historic cities and stroll cobbled streets. They see cathedrals, museums, castles. They eat great food, drink great beer and wine. Some folks love both the Caribbean and European cruises. Then there’s Alaska. What retired couple hasn’t been or doesn’t want to go?

That bug never bit me. We’re going to Vietnam. Then Cambodia. It’s a long trip, two solid days flying there and two back. We have our reservations and our itinerary.

Lots of Americans make the trip, although not as many as go to Europe. For some it’s a pilgrimage, tinged with emotion. Some three million Americans served in Southeast Asia, depending on how you define the timeframe. Some were there in the mid-1950s.

In March 1965 two Marine infantry battalions landed in Da Nang, the recognized start of America’s Vietnam War. Eight months later in a valley called Ia Drang, the Army’s 7th Cavalry airmobile regiment fought a vicious battle with the North Vietnamese Army, the first major U.S. military engagement since Korea. We learned years later the scope of the nightmare.

I missed Vietnam in ’72 by a couple of months, watching from a Marine base 1,400 miles away. More than 50 years later, the history resonates. We’ll get our shots and the bug spray. We’ll be there.