Vern Hobbs
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Rocky Mountain National Park By Vern Hobbs “Man, when you’re out there, surrounded by fourteeners, I dunno … just does something to your soul!” my gypsy-blooded neighbor exclaimed, struggling to find words that adequately described his latest pilgrimage to the western mountains. The term, “fourteeners,” refers to mountains exceeding 14,000 feet in elevation. The soulful effect, for which my neighbor could not find words, may well be what singer John Denver called... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
THE BLASKET ISLANDS By Tobin Bennison “One day there will be none left in the Blaskets of all I have mentioned in this book — and none to remember them. I am thankful to God, who has given me the chance to preserve from forgetfulness those days, that I have seen with my own eyes and have borne their burden, and that when I am gone men will know what life was like in my time and my neighbours that lived with me.” So wrote Tomás Ó Criomhthain in “An t-Oileánach” (translated... [Read more...]
Vern Hobbs
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Mykonos By Vern Hobbs www.flying-fish-creative.com Sinking in boredom, I paged mindlessly through the cable news channels. On one, an animated commentator dissected the most recent GOP debate. On another, a polished doomsayer belabored the Greek debt crisis, predicting the possible “end of Greece.” “End of Greece?” I blurted out incredulously. “If a little spending binge marks the end of Greece, then there’s no hope for the rest of the world,” I preached.... [Read more...]
Dan Reiter
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Photo: Ezra Millstein Haiti: A Land Forgotten By Dan Reiter Last November, I took a charter flight into the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with Habitat for Humanity’s annual Carter Work Project. Our mission: to build 100 homes for Haitian families displaced by the 2010 earthquake. The quake — a result of 250 years of bottled-up stress on a Caribbean fault line — demolished nearly every building in the capital city, killed 316,000 Haitians, and exiled over one million people to homelessness... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Estonia: Land of Song By T. Bennison “So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started to grow. But the sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded merry! It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY! He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes! Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise! Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, Was singing! Without any presents... [Read more...]
Vern Hobbs
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Bok Tower Gardens • Vern Hobbs This month, as we honor our veterans and observe Thanksgiving, consider a destination, not far from home, that represents one man’s gratitude to his adopted nation. Bok Tower Gardens, near Lake Wales, Florida, was conceived by Edward Bok as a symbolic gesture of appreciation to the United States for providing him with opportunities that transformed him from an impoverished immigrant into a wealthy entrepreneur. Bok arrived in New York from Holland at the age... [Read more...]
Dicky Funston
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Transylvania • By Dicky Funston • “… Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys…”... [Read more...]
Vern Hobbs
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
Southeastern Arizona - In the Footsteps of Buffalo Soldiers, Gunslingers, and Miners By Vern Hobbs www.flying-fish-creative.com “Draw, varmint!” I said in a low voice, bent slightly at the waist, eyes squinted, right hand poised inches from my Colt Peacemaker. I couldn’t help myself! I was standing in the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, the very place where the Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday settled matters with Ike Clanton and his gang. Uttering a cliché derived from hours... [Read more...]
M. Alberto Rivera
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
The Mothman Festival, Point Pleasant, W.Va. M. Alberto Rivera If all you know about the Mothman comes from that unwatchable snoozefest of a film starring Richard Gere, then take a moment to wipe it from your memory. The legend of the Mothman, as it pertains to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, is as follows: On November 15, 1966, two young Point Pleasant couples, the Scarberrys and the Mallettes, along with a younger cousin, Lonnie Button, were driving past the abandoned World War II-era TNT factory. They... [Read more...]
M. Alberto Rivera
Article Category: Get Out Of Town
South of The Border: Hamer, SC M. Alberto Rivera It’s hard to beat South of the Border for classic, roadside Americana kitsch. If you’ve ever driven on I-95 in either North or South Carolina, then you’ve driven past a billboard announcing the storied landmark and all it has to offer. Built in 1949 by Mr. Alan Schafer, it was originally known as South of the Border Beer Depot. Situated adjacent to dry counties in North Carolina, business here boomed. A few years later, a 10-seat... [Read more...]
