The past appears out of nowhere

I have a friend who apparently spent all of her college years taking pictures of everyone she knew. I say "apparently" because I didn't notice it at the time, but the pictures keep showing up on Facebook, and let me tell you, the ones with me in them are tragic.

The one she posted the other day didn't have me in it, but was instead of a few people I worked with at my college radio station, including a girl who I had a particularly difficult falling-out with. I'll spare you the details, but it was ugly.

Fine, whatever, she's in the photo, no big deal ... until I saw her comment. The comment in and of itself wasn't anything noteworthy, but it was enough for me to realize who the person was doing the commenting, since she's now married and her last name isn't the same. And before you ask, yes, I looked, but I will withhold further comment.

But that old feeling came back over me of being faced with someone I didn't want to deal with. In this case, did I want to comment, where I would then be a visible part of the conversation and she could respond, or just let it go?

As it turned out, I said something. A few people liked it. She had nothing to say, at least not for the purposes of that conversation. What she may have said privately at the sight of my name, I don't know and I don't care.

So for now, our lives remain separate. Fine by me.

Travel Thursday: Asheville

A little bit of downtown Asheville

What is it about Asheville that gets me so much, to the point where my wife and I try to make sure we visit every time we go to North Carolina?

The best word I can come up with to describe the city is "cool." It's a very nice-looking city, especially in the downtown. It's weird and artsy and funky. And even though they weren't they the first couple times we went to visit, my wife and I even have cool friends there now.

But there are plenty of cool places. For beauty, it's hard to beat Vancouver. Weird, artsy and funky ... have you ever been to Austin, Texas ... or Provincetown, MA, for that matter? And even if that's not your style, it's hard not to get caught up in the seemingly endless party that's New Orleans or London.

So what is it, exactly?

I wouldn't call myself a "pork dork," but ... yum!

Asheville is a couple hours west of Charlotte, about four hours west of Raleigh, not quite a couple hours east of Pigeon Forge, TN (think Dollywood) or Knoxville. But it's not really near any of them, or seemingly much of anything else.

Instead, it's splendidly isolated, an oasis of awesome in the mountains. Not only does it seem like it's not near anything, I've never felt a need to be anywhere else when I'm there, even the time my wife and I were looking for a store and the best thing on the radio was John Tesh's radio show.

Maybe it's the classic nice place to visit where I wouldn't be able to live, but being there and walking around and taking in the atmosphere after dropping off the rest of the world at the foot of the mountains seems so ...

... cool.

Genius we can't imagine

Alex Beam wrote a piece in yesterday's Boston Globe about what he called "the Mozart problem" ... genius so total that it can inspire, cause despair in people who are themselves accomplished ... or both.

"Mozart, of course, was the shutdown corner for the ages. Here’s what Billy Joel, no mean music man himself, told The New York Times a few months ago: 'Mozart [ticks] me off because he’s like a naturally gifted athlete; you listen to Mozart and you go: ‘Of course. It all came easy to him . . . ’ Mozart was almost inhuman, unhuman.'”

If you think about it, there is some level of brilliance permeating every aspect of our lives. The lights we illuminate our houses with, the motors in the cars we get around in, the medicines that extend and save lives, the computer I'm typing this on and whatever you're reading it on ... these all exist because someone figured something out, and most of us can't conceive how they did it.

For those of us who write, like Beam, we chase the great writing. I read Kevin Cullen, and I know I could never be that good, but when I write here or elsewhere, I'm hoping someone who reads it enjoys it the smallest, tiniest fraction of a smidgen as much as I enjoy him, because that means I've done something.

However, I can't relate to someone who writes great music, because my mind literally does not work that way. How awesome must it be to put together music and lyrics (or not, if someone's writing a purely instrumental piece) that turns out brilliant? What must it be like to be Billy Joel, whose songbook goes back decades?

I heard an interview with Alicia Keys on NPR around the time "Girl on Fire" came out, and when she talked about the songwriting process, to me, it sounded like a bunch of babble from someone trying way too hard to sound deep. But I'm willing to guess it made perfect sense to her as she was saying it.

And what must it be like to be a scientist, doctor or inventor, to have done something that literally changes people's lives? How did Thomas Edison feel when he saw his light bulb in wide use? What would Alexander Graham Bell think of cellphones? Jonas Salk discovered the cure for polio ... and then lived another 40 years to see what his work did for the world.

How amazing is that? And wouldn't we all wish we could do something close to that, even once?

Travel Thursday: At the border

From what I can tell, not every border crossing is this nice.

The first time I ever crossed the U.S.-Canadian border was my senior year of college. It wasn't much of a trip. A few of us were visiting one of my ex-roomate's friends in Buffalo, and we decided to go to Niagara Falls, because that's what people do.

There was only one complicating factor. Our group was three Americans ... and a Canadian. She had lived in the United States since she was a child, but was never naturalized, so it got the border guard's attention to hear "America ... America ... America ... Canada." I'm not sure what the guard thought we might have been up to, but when she pointed at us and blurted out, "I'm with those guys!" he let us pass.

In the several times I've gone to Canada (or the one time I've gone to England) since then, one thing that hasn't changed is that I get very nervous at the border or Customs, even though I'm no threat to anybody and don't do anything illegal. Although there was the one time I was fortunate someone read her guidebook ...

When my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I drove from where I lived outside Albany, NY, up to Montreal, I nearly got caught daydreaming at the border, thinking that since she was driving, the agent would ask her all the "Where are you from?" "How long are you staying?" "What are you here for?" questions.

However, he also wanted to know what I was up to, and I really wasn't paying attention. Lucky for me, he realized I was more flustered than dangerous, and an international incident was averted.

But while we were in Montreal, I had the genius idea to buy some Cuban cigars for my brother, who liked to enjoy a stogie once in a while. Obviously, I know we have a trade embargo with Cuba, but Canada doesn't, so why not? (Did I mention that this idea was pure genius, if by "pure genius," you mean "really stupid"?)

Lucky for me, the guidebook-reader of the two of us said it's illegal to even bring things in from a third country, which put a much-deserved kibosh on that idea. Otherwise, I might still be in a prison somewhere.

A few years back, when we went to Vancouver, we stopped at the duty-free shop on our way back to Seattle and headed over to the Peace Arch, which is in the picture above.  As we walked over, we were very careful to stay exactly on the path to the road without cutting any corners, and we made very sure to use the crosswalk. Jaywalking may be cause for a small fine elsewhere, but we didn't really want to take the chance of what it would lead to at a border crossing.

Coming back from Quebec City into northern Maine, since we were staying in Augusta for the night before heading back to our home outside Boston, the border crossing is little more than a booth. Whoever works there must be really bored.

But the thing I found fascinating was that once we crossed the border, the next town was roughly 10 miles away, and there was nothing but woods on either side of the road. It struck me that this particular stretch of road, about as close to the middle of nowhere as you can find, existed for only one reason ... to get people to and from Canada.

It literally had no other purpose.