I'm helping a friend with a book based on a journal a grandfather kept during the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. In a word the storyline is this -- a Nebraska school teacher left his home and family and more or less walked to Alaska to find his fortune, and he failed -- but what insights this guy had. After a cold, wind-swept fortnight when things didn't go well he wrote, "The trail is a great place to demonstrate character." Isn't that the truth? It made me think about the trails of modern society -- bad traffic, balancing our checkbooks, kids screaming in the background. The trail sure is a place to demonstrate character, isn't it? It made me think, too, that I could do a lot better. Thanks. D.