Back in the days when teambuilding was in vogue at my office, we had a consultant come and lead us through some exercises. One of them, designed to get us to think about the degree to which we relied on �leaders,� involved the office standing on a line and being given two choices. As the choices were given, we were to show our choice by going to one wall or the other. Ultimately, we were to discuss whether we looked to certain people before deciding. I don�t remember (and I didn�t care at the time) whether we did or didn�t. What I remember were the silly dichotomies. One of them was to chose between living near mountains and living near lakes. I did not look at anyone at all. I chose the lakes.

And yet I vacationed in the Pocono Mountains and I would do it again. In a sense, I had done it before. In my late teens and early twenties, I spent four summers working in the nearby Catskill Mountains. And, when we lived in New York City, Mr. Philately and I went camping fairly often at Port Jervis. (You can take the country boy to the suburbs but the lack of green in New York City, other than near the Cloisters, which we also frequented, drove him crazy.)

The mountains of the Appalachian chains were the first mountains I ever saw. Years later, as an adult, I would see the Rockies near Denver and the mountains in Phoenix. They were impressive. Just as Mr. Philately said, they were magnificent. These were the mountains of books and fairy tales. They had high peaks and, sometimes, snow caps.

But the Rockies, and their cousins, always looked cold to me. They were newer, upstart mountains, tall and gangly and all angles, just like a teenage boy. Yes, they were great to look at but I would not want to live with them. The mountains of my youth, by contrast, looked bent over and old and far less impressive. But they were tree-covered and green and comfortable. They were the grannies of mountains, rounded and enveloping.

And my recent visit reaffirmed it for me. Give me my Lake Michigan but if I cannot have my lake or other soothing water, give me my mountains. Yes, I�ll settle for mountains---but make it the Poconos.

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