The Joy of Elevation
I have often mused — and have written — about why I live on a mountain rather than on a beautiful tropical beach.
The very first house that I owned was a small cabin along a stream (we called it a creek) in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. My parents had a weekend cottage there, where they went to recover from the hard work at their country hotel and restaurant in Walnutport, PA.
That is really the name of the tiny town. The “port” part came from its location alongside a 19th-century canal on the Lehigh River. It was where the men (and the mules) from the canal barges overnighted on their way from the coal mines upstate to the markets downstate. I have no idea where the walnut part came from — I remember black cherry trees but no walnuts! My father — not a pleasant man (see Father Knows Best should you be curious) — didn’t like his only neighbor in that silvan corner and arranged for me to buy him out.
After some false starts, fleeing winter, I ended up on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a “free associated state” of the USA. If you’re curious about my journey, it is perhaps best recounted here. The island is roughly 35 miles wide and 100 miles…
