The Benton MacKaye Trail National Scenic Trail Feasibility Act of 2026, the status of which I described in a recent post, was passed today by the U.S. House of Representatives. The House bill, H.R. 2768, was part of a package of about a dozen bills Republican House leadership had agreed to consider this week under…Continue readingBenton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Act passes U.S. House
* * * I began an August 5, 2024 post as follows: In May of 2022, then again almost exactly a year later, I wrote about efforts by trail activists in the southern region of the Appalachian Mountains to seek Congressional designation of the 288-mile Benton MacKaye Trail (BMT) as a National Scenic Trail (NST),…Continue reading“Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Study Act” moves a step closer to passage by the U.S. Congress
NOTE: I had hoped to publish an earlier version of this post on Veterans Day, November 11, 2025, but I failed to meet that self-imposed deadline. This version is adapted and expanded from comments I delivered at my brother Bob’s June 7, 2025 memorial celebration in Bellows Falls, Vermont, where he was born on May…Continue readingOn the front lines of the Cold War: One young soldier’s “unusual perspective”
Fifty years ago, on December 11, 1975, Benton MacKaye died at age 96 in Shirley Center, Massachusetts, at the home of his friend, carekeeper, and long-time neighbor Lucy Johnson. To commemorate the semi-centennial of this mortal event, I include further below two substantial passages from my previous writing about MacKaye’s life and legacy. The first…Continue readingBenton MacKaye’s last days — and my not-so-funny 1995 alternative vision of a future Appalachian Trail
“Lights, camera, Adamsville!” The headline emblazoned on the front page of the June 26, 2025 Sakonnet Times ran atop a story by reporter Christian Silvia about the presence in Little Compton that week of film actor Jake Gyllenhaal, director M. Night Shyamalan, and their supporting troupe of performers and technicians. The filmmakers had arrived to…Continue readingLittle Compton movie notes, contemporary and historical–including when the town spurned “The Witches of Eastwick”