Doug – I tried googling it – you know, the Old Belmont Club, and my first hit on the subject is not old enough, unfortunately: “Cedarford, Have you ever set foot in Afghanistan?”

In late 1977, Afghanistan was the least civilized place you would cross in going around the world overland. Not counting the jungle, of course.

Calling Afghanistan “least civilized” in context: you ridd a Turkish bus from Istanbul to Tehran (across days of high rock and sand desert with a mud town here and there), then the packed Iranian train to Meshad (across salt desert). But when you take the mini-bus from the Iran/Afghan border to Herat, you knew you are entering a lawless world.

Each town looked like Dodge City, with open sewer trenches running down both sides of the wide dirt road they call main street. The unruly thoroughfares were lined with heavy trucks, mountain-going transports decorated on every surface with gaudy sequins, reflectors and baubles.

In Kandahar, the Blue Mosque was the background, same wide dusty roads through downtowns of two-story wooden roadhouses. The Afghani mountain men walked in the dust as the trucks rumbled by, wearing the blooming Afghan pants and turban. Each man had a heavy rifle hanging habitually over his shoulder as he strolled through town, good guns like Lee Enfields and M-1′s. More often than not, these bearded grizzly mountain men would be walking down main street holding hands, one seeming to be the girl, one the man.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There certainly wasn’t anything wrong with it back then, especially considering the quaint custom of the rifles they all carry. Now they all have AK’s and Iranian EFP’s, btw, not as picturesque as 30 years ago, the good old days..?..

OTHER TOPIC:
I wonder what a Prez Obama would do in the event that Russia really breaks out a new Cold War, and China goes along with them, like they did in the First Cold War?

I’d prefer a McPrez in that situation, just for old times’ sake.