Gary Randall

By Gary Randall, For The Mountain Times Growth is often blamed for what communities feel they are losing. New buildings go up, old ones come down, traffic increases, and familiar places begin to look different. It’s easy to point to growth itself as the problem. But growth isn’t the real enemy. Forgetting is. Towns have always changed. That isn’t new. What is new is how often change happens without any understanding of what came before it. When history is overlooked — or never learned —...

In late December 1964, as the Mountain was preparing for Christmas, the weather in the upper Sandy River valley began to shift quickly. A warm Chinook wind swept into the region, accompanied by days of heavy rain, melting a deep early-winter snowpack, while frozen ground prevented the water from soaking in. Creeks rose first, then the rivers. By the time people realized how serious it was, the water was already moving fast and carrying things with it — logs, boulders, and entire sections of...

Last week I was in Uncertain, Texas - yes, that’s the real name, supposedly chosen because nobody was certain what to call the town when the first maps were drawn – co-leading my annual photography workshop at Caddo Lake. After four years of visiting, the place has become familiar, but never ordinary. The bayou stretches out in a maze of slow, still, dark water, lined with ancient bald cypress trees draped in long strands of Spanish moss. It’s a world that feels half-wild, half-mythic,...