This must be the place: ‘Plates slammed onto the counter, coffeepot burped, voices ask of a loved ones’ whereabouts’

The title of this column is a sentence written in my old road journals. Back on Dec. 26, 2007. I was 22 years old and leaving my hometown of Plattsburgh, New York, heading west to start my first reporting gig post-college at the Teton Valley News in Driggs, Idaho. 

This must be the place: ‘I cherish my intercontinental friendships, we talk it over continental breakfast’

The smart phone dinged incessantly early this morning ‘round 8 a.m. at my small Waynesville apartment. Social media notifications and text messages. Then came the phone calls from my mother and father way up in the North Country. It’s my 39th birthday. 

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