The view from the Overlook Mountain fire tower in Ulster County.

I'm of the graying generation that has been the great beneficiary of the Clean Air Act of 1970. As I grew into my political self in my teens, then abhorred Ronald Reagan, then worked for an environmental magazine, then gave it all up for a Catskills log cabin, then gradually returned to society with heat thermostats on the wall, the skies have gotten cleaner and cleaner.

I've stood on Overlook Mountain when the view was so crisp you could see the tiny nub of the tower marking High Point, New Jersey, on the far horizon. I've stood under skies so achingly blue that my heart grew a size or two larger. How could something so simple as the sky be so impossibly beautiful?

Advertisement

Article continues below........

© Times Union