Free water

Free water

Drinking fountain and sign at the University of Montana The United States still seems big when I travel thousands of miles from Connecticut. Here in this photograph a sensibility I don’t see in Connecticut greets everyone headed to the rest rooms of the...
A mountain next to your town

A mountain next to your town

Sentinel Mountain looking over Missoula, Montana Missoula, Montana is a town tucked in the center of a ring of mountains. Sentinel Mountain watches over the University of Montana campus. Waving grasses bump up to long switchbacks in a trail that begins from a city...
Legs begin to move, thoughts begin to flow

Legs begin to move, thoughts begin to flow

Mount Isolation Trail, September 13, 2010 I am back from a trip to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I climbed Owl’s Head, the subject of a previous “Get This,” and five other mountains. I climbed to the ridge where Mount Monroe waited behind...
The mountain I said I would never climb

The mountain I said I would never climb

Owl’s Head, at right, from the top of Mount Garfield This mountain, the lopsided, bulbous ridge on the right, is much lower than the one on which I stood to take this picture, but it intimidates me more.It’s known as Owl’s Head, after a portion of...
A set of expectations punishing to women

A set of expectations punishing to women

Writing again. New York Times writer David Leonhardt brought out the old whiny sigh on August 3 about how hard it is for women to get ahead in America. He opens with a terrible microcosm of the labor market or society: the Supreme Court. Golly gee, the last three...