The Smell of...Victory?

This inspirational quote of the day comes from Jackie Galecke, courtesy The New York Times. In a story this morning about the lure of Door County in Wisconsin, where 300 miles of shoreline "offer dozens of islands, 10 lighthouses and limestone bluffs as high as 200 feet" and the air is "redolent of cherry orchards and the fresh water that embraces the peninsula," writes Elsa Brenner. Sounds nice; looks nice too, from the photo of the place on your right. I'm in.

So are Jackie and Bob Galecke, who, for the last 18 years, says The Times, have operated "a small summer cottage resort" in one of Door County's small towns, Ephraim, which they recently sold for a cheaper house there they plan to restore. Bob's the vice president of finance and administration at the University of Dallas, and his wife Jackie grew up in Michigan, and every April she heads north to get away from this city. Why?

Recalling her first visit to Sister Bay, her first spring in the Midwest after 15 years in Dallas, Ms. Galecke said: ''When I smelled the lilacs and cedar trees again, I cried. Dallas smells like concrete in the summer.''

That's a very nice way of putting it. --Robert Wilonsky