When you live overseas on Uncle’s dime, the government assigns you a house. In Botswana, the one they assigned Peggy and me came with a-hundred-and-twenty-nine keys. At least the ones we could hold in our...
One of the many nice things about living in Africa was the movies. In South Africa, or Morocco, or pretty much anywhere else, you could pick up the newest Tom Cruise blockbuster, or any other...
Our second year in Botswana started with a film festival at one of the local schools, and Peggy and I went. Quett Masire, the second president of the country was there, along with all the...
Cape Horn, jutting like a rhinoceros horn from the very bottom of South America, is as aptly named a piece of real estate you’re likely to find. At least that’s what I’d always supposed. For hundreds...
Having preciously descended to a thousand feet with Karl Stanley and his homemade submarine, two-thousand feet beckoned and we decided to go again. Karl, if you know your who’s whoms in the world of backyard submarine...
If you grew up in the South, it was impossible not to See Rock City SEE ROCK CITY was emblazoned on the roof of every barn and bird house in Georgia. And Alabama. And Tennessee and both Carolinas,...
On the map, Chilean Patagonia has looked like the southern end of Spanish America since the Fifteen-Hundreds. But the locals didn’t have maps. What they had was enough ferocity and enough knowledge of the land...
Once, when we lived in Botswana, we got invited to a formal luncheon. The president was at our table, along with the American ambassador and her husband, a retired lieutenant general. Three stars. I’d never...
To Americans brought up in the Fifties and Sixties, being invited to dine with the ambassador from Red China was like being invited to Mons Olympus to sup with the Man from Mars. We landed...
The night Peggy and I showed up for dinner with the Chinese ambassador we arrived five minutes early, parked next to the ten-foot high wall with the eight strands of electric wire on top, and...