The Bandit and I have completed our annual migration north, keeping to the backroads and the byways. We gave up trying to count stars in Historic Rugby. We toured a lonely Civil War battlefield in Kentucky where Michigan blood was spilled for freedom, and we walked a ghost road once stalked by Confederate raiders, now more weed and memory, whose shade would give you the shivers. We sighed at proud and once-proud houses moving too-quickly past our windows. We slowed to tip our caps to Amish buggies. We puzzled at the existence of as many “Americas” as there are souls living within it. From our reconnaissance, the Bandit and I are happy to report that the lightning bugs are up to their old tricks. The country is getting a little show-offy with her whole bursting summer dance of color and fragrance. Strangers are kind. The backwoods grilled cheese sandwich remains par excellence. And in these troubled times, there’s one thing that every American can agree on, and that’s a cat wearing a bow tie.