The recently announced plans for a Blueways Trail focusing on the recreational uses of Western North Carolina’s waterways is one of the better recent ideas for promoting our region. Its focus on the unique natural wonders of our mountains will make for a broad appeal that will speak directly to those who love the outdoors.

Officially dubbed the N.C. Smokies Blueways Trail, the concept is to develop tools that will help locals and tourists make better use of our rivers, creeks and lakes. That includes just getting to waterways to picnic or swim, improved access for canoeing and kayaking, and more information on fishing.

My father is retired Navy, and I lived on military bases until I was 10. My stepfather is retired Army Special Forces with several tours of Vietnam under his belt. My wife’s dad served in the Army and did duty in Vietnam and elsewhere. My brother served and has spent his career working as a civilian on a military base. I have a nephew in the Navy and my own son, 14 years old, right now says he wants to go into one of the military academies.

The U.S. military has been a part of my life since I can remember. Every Veteran’s Day and every Memorial Day that passes drags up some strong emotions, especially since my father passed away a few years ago.

I’m a late-blooming entrepreneur from a lower middle-class upbringing. My parents came from farming and mill-town childhoods, and they bought wholesale into the part of the American dream that told them their children, through education and hard work, will do better. But their faith in my ability to move up in the world stands in stark contrast to what many Americans can expect for their own children today. In fact, since the 1970s real income for the bottom 80 percent of American families has declined. Eighty percent. That sounds preposterous, but it’s the sad truth.

I’ve always believed in the adage that success builds success. It’s one of life’s truisms that anyone with eyes wide open sees very plainly, and it holds true in business, education, politics and the arts. That’s why Haywood Arts Regional Theater’s State II project will succeed, and I can’t wait until it’s up and running.

The plan for HART — which has called its Performing Arts Center on Pigeon Street home since 1997 — is to construct another building that will house a second full theater, a full kitchen, apartments for visiting performers, dressing rooms and storage areas. The theater will be smaller than the 250-seat main stage venue but larger than the intimate Feichter Studio Theater that houses up to 75 spectators. HART supporters have embarked on a $1 million fund-raising campaign.

Could you imagine how different it might feel to be an American today if the ideas of individual freedom and secularism that took root in Enlightenment Europe and the American colonies beginning in the 1700s had flowered in the Middle East at the same time?

The recent demonstrations against America and the killing of our ambassador and consulate employees — though admittedly these acts were carried out by a small minority — got me thinking about this. But then two relatively mundane stories I read in our own newspaper brought the issue full circle.

A trusted friend surprised me the other day. At his child’s elementary school, it had been decided parents should not walk their children into the classroom in the mornings. Seems such habits, according to the school officials, foster dependency instead of independence.

I laughed at first, thinking of my friend’s sense of humor. He knows I’ve always taken a keen interest in my own kids’ schooling, and I was sure he was kidding me. No joke, he retorted.

Even though there’s little room for compromise, I’m going to step into the fray.

Haywood County commissioners are trying to come up with a policy about Confederate flags and whether they should be allowed at the Confederate memorial that adorns the courthouse lawn. The flags — tiny, hand-held ones at that — were offensive to at least one person who raised the issue to the county, but I suspect there are many others who find the symbol just as offensive but are keeping their mouths shut.

Count me among those who hope the MedWest affiliation between Haywood, Jackson and Swain hospitals survives. Otherwise, I fear none of the three hospitals will survive, but instead be swallowed up or severely marginalized in within a decade.

It’s been a tumultuous four years for the hospitals in the counties west of Buncombe. Despite the bumps in the road, though, there seems now at least a path — via the management contract with Carolinas HealthCare — for the three hospitals to move into the future serving pretty much the same role in their communities they’ve been serving for decades.

North Carolina’s General Assembly — under the leadership of Republicans for the first time in more than a century— will hopefully refrain in the future from pushing unfunded mandates onto the backs of counties and their taxpayers.

The U.S. Congress approved the Help America Vote Act so that counties could keep electronic voting machines updated and election workers properly trained. After the Bush-Gore debacle in 2000 that ended up in the Supreme Court, that seemed a wise decision. Electronic machines could have prevented the problems that occurred in Florida, problems that left Americans in limbo as to who won the presidential election.

“You know, this is really the only thing I know I’ve wanted to do my whole life.”

That was my daughter Hannah, a rising senior at Tuscola. She’s had a lifelong gift for coming up with sweeping, profound declarations that make Lori and I laugh first and then ponder later.

She’s talking about being a guide at Folkmoot, which she is this year for the first time. The guides get to spend the entire 12-day festival with their group, eating and sleeping at the Folkmoot Friendship Center, helping the groups make it on time to all their performances and making sure all their other needs are taken care of.