Music in the hills of Georgia

This is how it looked one recent Saturday at John and Jody Bowles' house in Georgia -- before the music storm

In the middle of a dreary March marked by frequent snows and cold rains and blustery winds, John and Jody Bowles and their friend Neal Spivey did a remarkable thing: They invited dozens of musicians to bring their instruments to their home just outside Atlanta for a weekend of playing the music that once took the world by storm -- before the British Invasion.  Devotees of The Kingston Trio flew in from California and drove down from Minnesota and up from Florida and out from St. Louis and Ohio and south from New Jersey and Virginia and North Carolina to play everything they could think of.   It was billed as the Second Annual Kingston Trio Mini-Camp, playing off the long-running annual Kingston Trio Fantasy Camp held each summer in Arizona -- and sold out every year, at a pretty handsome price.

In the 1950s, The Kingston Trio was on top of the music world -- producing more albums each year and selling zillions of records and performing on college campuses and in clubs and auditoriums around the world.  "There had been other urban folk revivals, but it was  The Kingston Trio that set the wildfire, single-handedly ushering in the really big 'folk boom' of the late 1950s and '60s," wrote William J. Bush in "Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise  of the Kingston Trio."  Their first five albums all became number one sellers, something no other group has ever done.  Fourteen of their albums were among the Billboard Top 10 at one time or another, Bush added.  Nobody came close in popularity, until the Beatles (who reportedly were big Kingston Trio fans themselves) and Rolling Stones transformed popular music once again.  But the Kingston Trio still has a strong following, and the current Kingston Trio performs on the road 30 weeks a year, usually selling out, I'm told.  They remain popular because it's good music, they appear to still be having fun and they're accessible to their fans.


If you are into music, chances are you have seen a lot of Martin Guitars and Deering banjos and other pricey instruments.  You could buy a pretty nice mini-mansion on lakefront property for the money tied up in the collection of Martins in the Bowles home that day.  The Martin guitar is the standard for performers and serious students of guitar, and John Bowles owns Martins dating back to the late 19th century.  Others have had their Martins rebuilt, including one four-string tenor guitar that its owner, Bruce Blasej, had rebuilt into an eight-string tenor guitar for a fuller sound when played way up the keyboard. I got in on this deal when my friend of a half-century and more, Wood Allen of Charlotte, got us invited down to Alpharetta to join in. Wood's going as a camper to the fantasy camp this summer and I'm tagging along to take notes and pictures and maybe play a little guitar on the side. My instrument of choice is a 1959 Kay upright bass, but it's hard to pack that baby into an overhead baggage compartment, so my little Blueridge (yep, one word. Sigh.) tenor guitar -- a dead-on knockoff of the beautiful Martin tenor guitar played in Georgia by Rob Reider -- will make the trip with me.

That's Wood Allen, left, guitarist Tony Lay, center, and Stan Sheckman, right, on the bass guitar

 We played Friday evening, all day Saturday and Saturday evening, and all Sunday afternoon, running through as much of the Kingston Trio repertoire as we could remember and segueing into the Eagles, the Limelighters, and a lot of individuals, most particularly that of John Stewart, who joined the Kingston Trio in the latter 1960s and brought with him a new dimension in sound and songwriting.  One of the highlights of the weekend came Saturday afternoon when Rob Reider hooked up his laptop to the Bowles' TV and tuned in Bob Shane and his wife Bobbie out in Arizona so that we could serenade them live with  the rousing "I'm Going Home" march that the Kingston Trio made famous. Here a clip from that taken by Beth Woodward:

(If that video won't work for you, Wood Allen suggests trying this link:)

https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A2G6XBubGteMqQ

Bob Shane is a revered and legendary figure in American folk music, but his work transcended the field. Early on he was known as the "Hawaiian Elvis Presley." After Shane recorded his hit "Scotch and Soda," Frank Sinatra turned down the opportunity to cover it because, it has been written, no one could do it better than Shane already had.  Shane not only survives, but as the owner of the Kingston Trio band, he's still performing on occasion with the current K3s (George Grove, Bill Zorn and Rick Dougherty), and overseeing the production of new albums (Wood and I have a song that will be on a new disc) and the Kingston Trio Fantasy Camp in Scottsdale, AZ.  What was fun about this weekend is that his grown children also came by the Bowles' house and brought their grandchildren, so in one weekend we played for three generations of Shanes.  Pretty cool.

A very long time ago, Wood Allen and I and Fred Birdsong and later Jim Garrison thought we'd hit it big in folk music.  We thought we might be the next Kingston Trio.  We didn't and we weren't.  But thanks to a lot of nice folks who have kept the Kingston Trio flame alive and burning brightly, we've had a chance to know them, work with them in the studio and -- on occasions like the mini-camp in Alpharetta, play for the one of the originals.  As a Minnesota friend of mine likes to say, Not too bad.  

Mud Season in the Meadows

One of these days I'm going to figure out that my carefully-laid plans to tackle a number of outdoor projects over the winter on those occasional mild days ain't gonna work out.  For one thing, there ain't many mild days up here at 3,186 feet on the last ridge between the Eastern Continental Divide and the Blue Ridge Escarpment.

And when there are those few mild days -- forecasts above 40 degrees and winds of less than 15 mph -- the fact is they don't warm up enough to melt snow until afternoon, and they start getting colder again an hour later.  They are short work days, those winter afternoons, even here in the final weeks of winter.

So on the rare occasions when the mercury rises a bit and the sun peeks out a bit and the winds diminish a bit, there's a fevered race to get ahead start on spring chores.,  Thus in the past week we've pretty much worn ourselves out trying to get the blueberries pruned, the brushpile burned, the 6 trailer loads of leaves hauled that had piled up on the south side of the house, the old shed next to the asparagus patch cleaned out, that twisted pile of rusted metal roofing hauled to the county dump transfer station, the tire changed on the older of the two farm carts and the potholes in the gravel driveway filled with stone. Got most of it done, but those potholes will have to wait for a drier day.

No wonder I feel every one of my 157 years.  The calendar says I'm merely 68 years and eight months old, but my knees, calves, back and hands tell me they aren't going to work like that anymore, and besides, the machinery is way out of warranty.

Not a problem. Forecast is for a week of rain, and not much point in dreaming up anything else that needs attention. Besides, the Nationals and the Orioles are in spring training camp down the coast a ways, and I expect they'll be needing my services before too very much longer.  I always like to be available this time of year when the phone starts ringing, and anxious managers inquire how fast I can get down yonder, you know.   Play ball!

Mamie Betts's 139th birthday today

There'll be a small party tonight at our place to celebrate my grandmother's 139th birthday. Probably just two of us there, part of a dwindling few who remember that remarkable woman when she was in her prime at, oh, 80 or 85. She was always ready to jump in the car and go somewhere. Or deal another game of cards, her green eyeshade pulled low and her eyes darting around the table. Or ready to pick up a squalling grandchild or great grandchild and balance him or her on her ample lap and tell another of her stories about life back in the day.

She was born a decade after the end of the Civil War, grew up in Raleigh when it was just a small dusty town, still smarting from Sherman's visit but still mostly intact.  She attended Peace Institute, just a few blocks on the other side of the Governor's Mansion, met an aspiring young dentist named Joe Betts, moved to Greensboro shortly after the turn of the century and lived to be 103 before going to her reward in 1979.  She had most of her marbles up until she was 102.

To celebrate the end of her 14th decade, we'll have a nip or two of bourbon, her toddy of choice after she rejoined the Presbyterian Church after the death of my teetotaling Methodist grandfather in the mid-1950s. Her second son Henry would bring her a jug every month or so and put it near the front leg of her writing desk, close to hand in case she wanted a little nip. Her first son was my Dad, John Monie Betts.  Her daughter was a beauty named Margaret, but of course we knew her as Peggy. When those three kids got together with their mom, the laughter would fill the room.

She was a force field in Greensboro in the first half of the century.  Along with two other women whose last names also began with a B ("the Three Bees," as they were called locally) she founded the Greensboro Historical Museum in 1924.  She and Joe Betts were into technology, in a way.  They had one of the first residential telephones in Greensboro in their front hall, and my Dad once told me he never forgot their phone number.  What was it? I asked. "Seven," he said.  They also had a radio that could be tuned to stations named in gold paint on the dial: Tokyo. Berlin. Paris. London. Chicago. New York.   And they subscribed and kept every copy of National Geographic, providing their grandchildren with pictures from around the world that would reappear in elementary school projects at Irving Park and Aycock schools in the 1940s and 50s.

Mamie Betts, as friends called her (To my older sister and me, she was simply "Gran"), was a formidable presence who bore a striking resemblance to a certain presidential spouse.  The family story goes that a stranger once inquired, "Beg your pardon, but aren't you Eleanor Roosevelt?"  To which she replied, "I most certainly am not," and strode away in a huff. 

In her early days in Greensboro as a young bride and mother, she struck up a fast friendship with Annie Cooke, whose husband (and in time, children and grandchildren as well) was a prominent lawyer in town.  Many years later after their husbands died, my grandmother moved in with Annie Cooke and they spent years holding court in Annie's handsome brick home near the golf course.  They were known to most folks as Aunt Annie and Aunt Mamie.  Their upstairs den was a popular gathering place, especially for Annie's sons, graduates of Davidson College, during the 1960s when the Wildcats had nationally prominent basketball teams.  Through some quirk of the atmosphere, the TV in Annie's den could often pick up televised games from Charlotte stations, and a crowd of Davidson alumni, most of them but not all of them lawyers, would watch the games while Annie and Mamie poured lemonade and dealt cards at the table in the corner.

My lasting memory of these two old friends came with their attachment to taking Sunday afternoon drives. For a long time, their driver was a quiet, dignified black man named Leroy -- not Leeroy, Aunt Annie was quick to point out to those who did not know the distinction, but leROY -- who would tuck  the two old friends into the back seat of Annie's car and then hop in front to drive them for a long turn around Greensboro.  Leroy was not in great health in his later years, and he lost a leg to complications from diabetes.  My Dad worked for a surgical supply company and had Annie's car fitted with a mechanism that made it possible to drive the car with one leg.  Thus when they went for a drive, it was the two old ladies who helped Leroy out to the car and into the front seat, and then Annie and Mamie would let themselves into the back and off they would go, gliding around town for the afternoon.  Years later, when I saw the movie "Driving Miss Daisy," there were scenes when I felt like I  had seen this flick before.

Gran saved my bacon once from almost certain permanent grounding.  My parents were out of town one week in the mid-1960s, and Mamie was staying with my sister and me to make sure we didn't get into trouble. I was working construction that summer, and had an early start to the day.  I had left a stove burner on after fixing coffee and rushing off to the other side of town.  The red-hot burner first melted some of the plastic wall tiles my Dad and I had years earlier applied to the wall behind the stove. Some of the melted plastic ignited and, before the stench woke my sister and my grandmother, the resulting fire spread an oily black goo all over the kitchen.  When I got home that evening,  Gran offered me a deal: "If you can get this cleaned up and fixed before your mother and father get home, I'll never tell them about it."  So it was that I spent the next 48 hours scrubbing off goo, chiseling away burned and deformed tiles, finding replacements and more mastic, and getting the kitchen back in reasonable order before the parents got back.  The kitchen smelled faintly of  burnt toast and turpentine for months after that, but no one said a word, and I was allowed to live.

So this evening I will raise a cup or two of Kentucky's finest to Mary Atkinson Monie "Aunt Mamie" Betts.  Happy Birthday, Gran, and thanks.

Sweet dreams of the Bahamas in the dead of winter

So, it's about 15 degrees outside here in the Blue Ridge, about 1 degree early this morning, and the weather folks tell us it's going to snow maybe 8 to 12 inches tomorrow. Gonna go up to 15 or 16 tomorrow. First chance this week to be above freezing is Saturday, when the forecast is for 34.

All right. I asked for this. Like it, in fact, most of the time.  But we got a nice break this winter, what with a family wedding in Hawaii in January and an invitation from boating friends who live just a couple or three ridges to our west in Dugspur VA, but who keep a boat down near the N.C. coast in Whortonsville (the Whortonsville Tractor and Yacht Club, in fact) and who move down the Intracoastal in November each year, spend about three months in the gentle climes of the Bahamas, and head north again in March.

We flew into Marsh Harbor on Greater Aboco Island a couple weeks ago and for the second time in our lives (and second time within two weeks) put on T-shirts and shorts and sandals in the dead o' winter and enjoyed temperatures that average something like 40 to 60 degrees warmer than what we usually see outside our windows up here in what is sometimes called the Blew Ridge.  Loved every minute of it.

Don't get me wrong. I like cold weather. I like being able to see 500 feet into the leaf-free woods, to be able to follow the logging trails that the Woods and the Conners carved into these hillsides in the late 19th and much of the 20th centuries, like being able to hike down to the stone foundation ruins of an unknown pioneer family on the North Prong of the North Fork of the Smith River maybe 800 feet from our front porch, and contemplate what it must have taken to carve out a small homestead in a gorgeous but challenging countryside.

Hopetown Harbor on Elbow Key, with the red-striped lighthouse in the background

But we weren't  thinking  about hardship and fighting the elements too much the other evening in Hopetown Harbor on Elbow Cay  (always pronounced key, the guidebooks tell us) at 6 p.m under the first glimmerings of a full moon.  There's a tradition of Tuesday evenings (or was it Monday?) when boaters bring their inflatable dinghies over to the northerly side of the harbor as the conch horns begin to celebrate the setting of the sun.  Everyone ties on to everyone else, begins passing around snacks and uncork whatever it is they are wetting whistles with that evening, and the weekly Dinghy Drift begins.  As the sun sinks below the horizon beyond the Elbow Cay Lighthouse, the Drift moves slowly across the harbor, passing sportsfishermen and Gold Plate sailing vessels and trawlers and battered scows and lovely motor vessels, and every now and then someone cranks up an outboard to move a raft of maybe 15 dingies carrying maybe 35 congenial folks a couple feet out of the way of somebody's hull.  It is a most civil gathering.

Old salts Martha B. and her pal before heading up the ways for Man-O'-War Cay

In the following days we cruise the waters of the Abaco Sea, putting into anchorages at Man-O'-War Cay, Orchid Bay, around the terrible ship-killer Whale Cay, briefly on Green Turtle Cay for wonderful conch fritters for lunch and then on to the pristine Manjack (pronouced Munjack, we are told) Cay, where we meet folks who have carved out their own paradise on an island that has no facilities or utilities other than what they have been able to fashion from their own hard work and ingenuity. Amazing what a big bank of solar panels and, oh, 15 or 20 years of backbreaking labor can produce.

At anchor and looking west from Manjack Cay.

There were some moments of sheer hilarity -- dinghying back from a calm Atlantic-side beach into a 30 mph-wind that had waves breaking into our dinghy as Theresa Palmer (one of the Caribbean's finest boat cooks) was pumping water back overboard and Capt. Brian Palmer was getting lashed with bullets of salt spray.  I am happy to say he took it like a man and a Scot. But I repeat myself.  The admirable Ship's Dog Martini was taking it all in with her generally calm demeanor -- and an expectation of a hefty dinner once aboard the Motor Vessel Intermission.

As I sit and write, in a frigid landscape in need of some gentle Out Island breezes,  I do believe I'd go back to that Bahamas storm anchorage in a, what,  Manjack Minute?

And, as sailors of my acquaintance say, Splice the Main Brace.*

*From Wikipedia: "Splice the mainbrace" is an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with a drink. Originally an order for one of the most difficult emergency repair jobs aboard a sailing ship, it became a euphemism for authorized celebratory drinking afterward, and then the name of an order to grant the crew an extra ration of rum or grog."

A gentleman and a Dean

 I was out of the country when the news broke that Dean Smith, longtime coach of the University of North Carolin Tar Heels, had died last weekend. The tributes that rolled in for Coach Smith were moving especially to those of us who had watch this Kansan revolutionize the game of college basketball while at the same time serving as the conscience of the larger community for so many things.  And it reminded me of the basic, fundamental humility of this giant among the coaching profession.  I never knew him well, but on one magic evening a little more than a decade ago, I sat at his side at dinner and listened to him talk about important things -- winning, for sure, but more importantly, about life.  He was fascinating, informative, inquisitive and gracious as he quietly answered questions from a group of North Carolina's editorial writers and columnists. 

 In 2010, after it became widely known that he was struggling with memory loss and other adverse effects of dementia, the following column appeared in The Charlotte Observer, where I was an associate editor, and The News and Observer.

A gentleman and a Dean

By JACK BETTS

July 27, 2010 

Watching Dean Smith walk onto the playing floor of the basketball palace named for him in February was a thrill for many who didn't know they'd ever see the famed coach on the hardwood again. Adoring fans and players cheered for the innovator from Kansas, sending up thanks for hundreds of memories of the way he coached his teams to success and the way he treated his players - stars, role players and bench warmers alike.

There had been rumors for a while about Smith's condition. Only recently has the news become widespread that his memory is failing him. The man who revolutionized college basketball and set a standard for conduct could no longer always remember those who had been close to him throughout his life.

Smith's family acknowledged these signs of aging in a graceful statement about his progressive neurocognitive disorder. It deprives him of his ability to remember every name, every game, every signal event in a long and productive career.

I've had a few interactions with him over a long period - a handshake and a chat a time or two back in college days when I was a cheerleader. In those days the packed crowd in Carmichael made the place thunder when Bobby Lewis or Larry Miller finished a full-bore fast break with an unbelievable twisting reverse layup followed by Lou Bello's whistle signaling a foul in the act of shooting.

Those were dizzying days. Smith's teams did amazing things - including turning my mother, a conservative, prim grammar teacher who brooked no nonsense from anyone on the globe, into a rabid basketball fanatic. At a game in the 1970s I saw this tiny survivor of the Great Depression and lifelong health challenges practically knock down grown men to plant herself in Phil Ford's path and ask for his autograph on a program.

Maybe it was all those games Smith's teams won that made her such a fan. But I suspect it was more the way he treated those who played for the blue and white - and the discipline and determination he instilled in his players.

Years later I came to find other reasons to admire Dean Smith. In 2004, a group of editorial writers and columnists from the state's newspapers were planning their annual get-together in Chapel Hill, a weekend heavy on discussions of public policy, research findings and brainstorming about upcoming issues. We talked about a dinner speaker, and someone suggested Dean Smith.

I thought it was unlikely we could get him to join us. He was probably getting hundreds of such invitations, and it was well-known that he declined most of them. And since basketball season was still on, he'd be tuned to the TV, not to the questions of opinion writers.

A couple of days after I wrote inviting him to join us, his office called back. Coach Smith loved to read the editorial and op-ed pages of the newspapers and, as long as the Tar Heels weren't playing that Friday night, he'd be delighted to join us.

That was the prelude to the most enjoyable evening with a public figure that I can recall. Smith didn't want to give a speech, but he was happy to have a long conversation about any topic we wanted to pursue. So as we tore into platters of food at a room over Spanky's on Franklin Street, we talked about players, NCAA rules, recruiting, politics, the upcoming presidential election, the U.S. Senate race (and how he had resisted entreaties to run for office) and how college life had changed so dramatically over his career.

I reminded him of some unforgettable moments from the late 1960s when his teams were beginning to win consistently - and mentioned a player who had recovered the ball in a scramble and found himself sitting in the lane, back to the basket and no one to pass to. He flipped the ball back over his head - and might have been the only one in Carmichael not to have seen it drop through the bucket for two.

Smith smiled, reminded me of a few other details about that play and recalled the recruiting of a key player. He was from a family so poor that he had never been to a restaurant and didn't know how to use a menu. When he got to Carolina, the blue blazer the team issued him in the years when the practice was common was the first such jacket he had ever worn. Smith thought NCAA rules governing such things, well-intentioned as they were, sometimes go too far.

In time the conversation turned to opposing coaches. My longtime friend Rosemary Roberts, a columnist for the Greensboro News & Record, wanted to know what Smith thought about Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski's habit of using strong language that appeared on TV to include barnyard expletives.

"Mike's a friend of mine," Smith said, "and I'm not going to say anything bad about him."

Then he smiled and added, "But in the home where I grew up, 'gosh' and 'darn it' were considered pretty strong stuff."

I'm pretty sure I saw Dean Smith express himself in plain terms to the refs a time or two. But I appreciated his gentle answer about a rival coach many thought surely was his mortal enemy.

Reflecting on it later, I remembered that before Dean Smith became famous many folks wondered what it was he was dean of.

It was dean of a lot more than just basketball. It was also how to live and how to conduct oneself.

Thanks, Coach.

"I wish I'd gone in," he said with a sigh

On a raw and misty day in Roanoke I was headed back to the car with a bag of hardware when a shiny red SUV rolled up beside me and a loud voice blared, "I always heard that stood for 'Ain't Ready for the Marines Yet."

I turned, puzzled, and saw a fellow about my age behind the wheel, grinning and pointing to my ball cap. I had forgotten I had an old cap with ARMY emblazoned on the front. It's a cap I wear from time to time to remind me about my days in the Army in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and to reflect on how lucky we are in an uncertain world to have folks willing to put on the uniform and go where they're sent and do what they're trained to do.

The other fellow was smiling and I thought he was having too good a time at my expense, so I asked, "When were you in the Marines?"  He replied, "I wasn't.  I was in the hospital with bleeding ulcers about the time they had the draft lottery, and my number was never called."

We chatted for a while about the military and friends we had known who went in, most of whom came back, and a few who never got back home.  I told him I recalled reading somewhere that in the Vietnam era, most of those in the American military services didn't go off to war, but served stateside like me, or in other relatively peaceful billets around the world.  Now in the post-draft volunteer Army, so many soldiers go off to fight on multiple tours of duty.  My niece's husband has been deployed five or six times, I think -- a huge difference in the way things used to be.

My new acquaintance was staring off into the distance by then, thinking, I suppose, about the changes he'd seen, the opportunities he had, the roads taken and not taken, and he was quiet for a few moments. Then he looked at me and said, "I wish I'd gone in.  I was always sorry I didn't."  We shook hands, and he rolled away into the mist.

Winter? What winter?

It may have been the Knob Creek with honey and lemon that got me through one of the worst winter colds I've had in years.  Or maybe it was the prospect of a family wedding on the island of Maui in Hawaii -- and the wintertime weather there.  I've not spent any time there previously and likely won't be going back anytime soon, but I can tell you it was every bit the paradise written about in the travel guides.  Back home in the Blue Ridge, it was minus 2 degrees F one night, and a heavy ice visitation came at least once.  On the island of Maui, it was in the high 70s and low 80s and we were wearing shorts, T shirts and flip-flops and enjoying warm breezes, cool drinks and sunny beaches.  I know, it isn't fair.

We were in Hawaii to celebrate the wedding of our grandfriend Riley Hart and Koniela Lurie.  Riley has been a part of our lives for most of her life.  When she was little she sometimes stayed with us in Raleigh, went sailing with us on our old cutter a few times and found her way into our hearts. Some years she comes on the family beach trip to Figure Eight, and visits us in the mountains. We're not kin in the traditional way, but she is family to us, as is her mom Joy and an extended circle of sisters, brothers, cousins, nephews and friends of each of them.

Our son John spent a lot of time with Riley as she was growing up and they are as tight as any father and daughter I know. John and our daughter Mary joined us for the wedding and for travel around the rest of the island. We also saw our nephew, Ian Strickland, who lives on Maui and who has known Riley for years as well. And John's friend Jana joined us a few days later.

Riley and Koniela were were married on a lovely Saturday evening, on a bluff high above the beach, on a community farm near Hana, in an unusual ceremony that included chimes, a flute, two friendly dogs, a gathering of family and close friends from as near as the next bungalow and as far away as Winston-Salem and Australia, and a good bit of quiet reflection.  It was followed by hours of feasting in the community cafe with roasted wild beef and roasted pig, and guitar, banjo and other string music well into the night.

The day before the wedding we had found out how gorgeous those islands can be. We flew into Kahului, rented a car, stocked up at the Costco and the Whole Foods (where we ran into Joy, her husband Carl and Joy's sister Sterling, and set out on one of the most gorgeous rides we've ever seen.  Listen, we live near the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway.  We've driven the magnificent roads of Western North Carolina, through Arches National Park out West, and on the backroads above Bryce Canyon. But never have we seen anything remotely like The Road to Hana.

If you haven't experienced it, imagine a 50-mile road with 617 curves, 56 mostly one-lane bridges, dozens of waterfalls and places you simply have to stop and gape at the scenery around every curve.  The rich, heady sight of tropical flowers, the vistas of the ocean and the black-sand beaches and the red-sand beaches, and the impossibly narrow curves where car drivers must slow nearly to a stop and inhale while they squeeze by the vehicle coming the other way make it an unforgettable trip.  Just 50 miles to Hana, but it can take you all dadgum day to get there if you spend any time atall stopping to investigate the Rainbow Trees or the stunning falls of water, the dramatic and sometimes scary roadway built in the 1930s, or the remnants of the old sugar cane rail lines.  It reminded me of those lines from Freeborn Man:

"I know every inch of highway, every foot of backroad, every mile of railroad track."

Well, I never exactly saw evidence of the old sugar cane train tracks, except in my mind, but plenty of the backroad parts.  Fortunately, John was driving us, so for me it was rubbernecker's delight. All Martha and I had to do was hold on for 617 curves. It took more energy than you'd think, even with an expert driver.

I thought it would be hard to return to the mountains after those warm days on Maui and a few more on Oahu, but when we got home it was pushing 55 degrees in the mountains -- and the sun shone through Thursday. Caught up on the last of the Fall chores -- guttering the shop porch roof, putting up snow guard bars, taking down a couple of elderly locusts near the patio, reopening the trail down to the pond dam, mowing the dam top and starting the tricky task of pruning the blueberries on a west-facing slope.  These chores never end on an old farm, but I was halfway through the week's work before I even remembered that hacking and wheezing of just a few weeks back.  Remarkable how much good a warm sunny place can do you when a winter cold arrives.  Today, the cold weather moves back in with a forecast of snow, freezing rain and sleet.  I'll put away the aloha shirts and put a coda on a fine trip with a word Hawaiians use: Mahalo. Or as we say, Thank you.