News & Update

News From Afar: My old friend Nancy, who lives in Austin with her husband Jon, is expecting a child toward the end of this year, her first. Some context: I've known her since 1976, during her freshman year in high school and my sophomore year. Congratulations and best of luck to them. Fewer and fewer of my cohort (more or less) are producing children, though I suppose there will be a trickle for many years yet.

Update: Geof Huth, who had open-heart surgery earlier this year, seems to have made a strong recovery. In any case, he's sending me a steady stream of postcards once more, including a goodly number from his recent destination of Englewood, Florida, on the Gulf coast between Sarasota and Fort Myers. Including one depicting a trail in Oscar Scherer State Park, a place I was previously unfamiliar with, though in planning our '05 Florida trip I briefly considered the nearby Myakka River State Park as a destination. I would have happily skipped Disneyworld for it.

"We spent part if the day," Geof wrote on April 14, "--enough of it to sunburn my neck--walking the trials of Oscar Scherer State Park, parts of which are remarkably prehistoric in their feel, though the park's gift shop is careful not to include any postcards that accurately portray that character of the park."

There aren't too many places in North America any more with that prehistoric feel, I'd think. Wouldn't park management want to play that up? Come for the nature trails, stay for the hunting/gathering.