WEAK AND BEWILDERED :

A Salmon River Send-off : A son floats into adolescence on Idaho's "River of No Return." (Andrew Ferguson, 05.13.02, Forbes FYI)

It wasn't until we were on the plane to Idaho that I discovered that the Salmon is known as "The River of No Return." Even allowing for the usual Big Sky Country/ Mountain Man chest-thumping, this struck me as unsettling. My son came across a poem with that title in a guidebook. "Men have floated on your waters/They've explored from end to end--" he read eagerly. "Still they never return homeward/By the way they did descend."

"I see," I said.

"For your waterfalls and canyons," he continued, "And your rapids, swift and strong/Find them weak and quite bewildered/As your might they would disarm."

"Weak and bewildered," I said. "Aha."

Andrew Ferguson is the most underappreciated political writer in America. Period. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 4, 2002 8:59 AM