“Take the high road.”

It’s a simple code for life, but one too few take to heart and even fewer have the courage and fortitude to embrace. It’s much easier to go low, to lash out against critics or take unethical measures in order to come out on top.

Some people’s memories of their first car are glazed with sugar, like candy apples at the county fair. It is just one species of nostalgia, I guess. A few of my classmates actually did drive cool cars, including some twins who shared a black Trans Am that was the envy of every teenage boy who had seen Burt Reynolds driving one in “Smoky and the Bandit,” which played for about 80 consecutive weekends at the Twin Oaks drive-in theater.

As the yoke of political influence grows ever heavier around the neck of the UNC Board of Governors, Western Carolina University’s chancellor search has gone off the rails and there is not yet any indication when it will get back on track.

Because much of the process used to replace a chancellor is shrouded in secrecy, those who care deeply about this university and its faculty and staff are left guessing as to what exactly happened. But there are many of us who can’t help but suspect the worst kind of chicanery, especially given the brand of politics played by the current legislative leadership. It’s a sad state of affairs, particularly if our great university system becomes just a pawn in this ongoing power play.

Growing up, my family had an abundance of cats running amok. These were the days before spaying and neutering were common occurrences. We all know what happens when there’s no protection against the passions of nature, so inevitably we had a feline family much bigger than our own. 

Each time a litter was born, we would keep a few kittens and give others away to neighbors or friends. I remember my sister and I feeding many a kitten with a medicine dropper, making cozy beds for them out of Avon boxes and towels, and nursing those with parasites back to health. She and I also created a pet cemetery in the woods behind our house where we would hold a memorial service and bury the cats or kittens that passed on. 

EDISTO ISLAND, SC – For us, the magic of Steamboat Landing Road begins where the pavement ends, where the asphalt turns to dirt. From there, it is less than a mile to the landing, but at dusk it seems longer than that when we are on one of our nightly walks, watching the crabs crisscross in front of us as we search for frogs no bigger around than a penny. After it rains, as it often does on sweltering Edisto afternoons, the frogs are plentiful.

Even though our children are teenagers now, they still delight in capturing these frogs — just for a few minutes, anyways, giving them cute little names like Eddie or Gloria and rubbing their tiny pale bellies. Their legs, suspended in the air, are not much bigger than eyelashes.

Though my parents were both teachers and worked second jobs to give my sister and me all we needed, they never put travel on the back burner. Their mentality was “less stuff, more experiences.” We always had a used station wagon and a modest home but we never sat still very long, and for that I’m forever grateful. 

Lori and I have always loved to travel, to go to new places or to get better acquainted with places we’ve been before. It’s part curiosity, part adventure. As the now more famous dead than alive chef and world traveler Anthony Bourdain put it in his show’s title, it’s the thrill and the surprises that come with discovering “Parts Unknown.” 

Quite a few people have contacted me this week seeking an English translation of President Donald Trump’s recent reflections on Elton John, breaking records, hockey, which people need space and which ones do not, whether the brain is or is not attached to the mouth, and the correct order of importance of different body parts.

By Will Studenc