The paradox of Lookout Mountain does not trouble any child, especially mine. He sees no trouble with its lofty summits, serene views, and relief from the summer heat combined with the tackiest of amusements and commercial attractions for family tourists. Lookout Mountain straddles two states (supposedly seven can be seen from the naked eye from the summit) on the most southerly bend of the Tennessee River opposite Chattanooga. If unwilling to take Robert Frost’s suggestion of the path less beaten, be prepared to stare out the windshield at a convoy of car top carriers pushing upward at a twenty degree angle while passing billboards, camper vans, and RV’s. It may be best not to get out of the vehicle at all. Pocked with harmless names such as Ruby Falls and Incline Railway, I decided to bring ... read more

28 June Manchester, Connecticut All I wanted was a few weekends and to take him to a hockey game now and then. Instead his mother resorted to the deplorable yet sure-fire tactic of using him as a weapon against me. She has utilized him this way from the very beginning when she didn’t get what she wanted out of me. For years I tolerated the put downs, insults, and threats. I held my tongue and other primordial impulses when she force fed him a liver dinner. I squealed with him as she practically pried his teeth open with the fork from which dangled the rancid smelling organ meat. Tears gathered at the corners of my boy’s eyes as he mashed the liver with his teeth. I yelled at her to stop, but in her smug and ... read more

Interstate 81 and I go back to my earliest memories of elementary school. It and I would join at Scranton, the corridor that splits the Allegheny and Blue Ridge Mountains, a 324-mile straight-shot gutter ball asphalt groove connecting Winchester and Bristol, Virginia. The highway and I have a somnambular relationship. My aunt would zip across the commonwealth from the West Virginia border and out I would go sometimes as far as two-thirds of the way. The running joke for years is that I would travel through Virginia and seldom see any of it. We rarely took on the much more intimidating states west of the Mississippi. Not of driving age, I accepted my sleeping spells as an effective technique to shorten the time in a state that I considered to be endless. “Keep on going, Aunt ... read more

Winter in Québec takes on human qualities and does not follow the guidelines set forth by a twelve-month calendar. It has already come and will not surrender for the better part of the next four-and-a-half months. It lends a feeling of being in the last outpost before pure wilderness takes over. Lac Mégantic, a stern community on the shores of a sizeable lake of the same name, loses its seasonal appeal around the time the last tourists return to Montréal after having extracted their boats out of the water. What is left behind is a singular, sand-covered Main Street of strict block buildings in need of a coat of paint. Eighteen wheelers rumble through town past a Sears catalogue depot, dysfunctional parking meters, and restaurants yet to open in the late morning. The newly cut pine ... read more

At first it is a contest of which side can be louder, prouder, and more patriotic. When it is all said and done, citizens of both nations crowd at the locked gates that separate them. They cheerfully and curiously speak to each other while clasping the painted bars, knowing full well it is the closest they will ever come to setting foot on what was once a singular India sixty years ago. After proceeding through broken-down metal detectors (or simply stepping to the side of them to get through), the Pakistanis segregate their public by gender. The men occupy one section of the curved grandstands to the left; the women go the other way. If there is any advantage at all to witnessing the border closing ceremony on the Pakistani side, it is the VIP seating ... read more