It was the same view I’d seen a hundred mornings before, but this time it was different. As I wondered what could’ve possibly possessed those clowns to fly jetliners into skyscrapers, I didn’t see Silicon Valley’s smog-inducing sea of sameness. This time I saw an ocean of ingenuity in all those office parks: people designing faster microchips, gleaning the secrets of DNA, making manufacturers more efficient.

I’ll grant you those 19 guys were clever, daring and devoted to a cause. And there probably were thousands more just like them scattered around the globe. But they were outnumbered 50-to-1 in Silicon Valley alone, and the Silicon Valley types were building stuff, not blowing it up.

The lesson of human history is that the builders keep building and the bomb-throwers get blown up. That was the world I saw that morning on my way to work.

In America, we build. Not just houses, factories and fast-food joints. We build ourselves.

We’ve gotten ourselves into terrible jams in the 235 years since the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence. A Civil War, a Great Depression, two World Wars. Today gutsy young Americans are dodging bullets on our behalf, just as they’ve done in all our wars.

I’m not into simplistic, flag-waving patriotism that hollers “my country, right or wrong.” Everybody loves their country, which makes us all easy prey for politicians who’d use our affection for our homeland to fight their ill-advised wars. I’m even a little embarrassed by fireworks when I think of all the people who’ve huddled in bomb shelters as American-made rockets rained down on their neighborhoods.

Yeah, the history books are full of our nation’s screw-ups. We owned slaves, we wiped out Indian tribes. Up until about 1965, liberty meant “you’re free if you’re white.”

Two generations later, descendants of slaves are among our most popular personalities, and our president is a half-African with “Hussein” for a middle name. Try to imagine another country with 300 million citizens where that could happen.

We were the country that dumped monarchy into history’s landfill. We proved that people could elect their own leaders and build a productive, prosperous society despite all the divisions — religion, ethnicity, class — that bedevil us. Making racism obsolete will be our gift to the world. We’re not there yet, but it seems doable.

On paper my prospects are grim: 49 years old with no job and a home-based business built mainly on a suspicion that I can make it work. Yet that’s what makes me proud to be an American on this Fourth of July — that the impossible just seems doable here.

1. We adapt to the terrain

There’s never only one way to climb a mountain, cross a stream or camp out for the night. There’s only the way that makes the most sense right now and further down the trail. How I hiked a trail last week is irrelevant if a 1,400-pound tree is blocking the trail today.

2. We don’t ignore what’s obvious to our senses

Hikers have to change our minds when the prevailing winds tell us we’re going south when we should be going north. We listen for distant thunder and prepare for rain as it gets closer. We stay off hilltops in electrical storms.

3. We don’t fear getting lost because we know how to get found

Hikers train themselves to watch for signs of wrong turns, pay attention to critical landmarks along the way, and have a turn-back plan in place if the trail we seek doesn’t show up on schedule.

4. We manage risk

Hikers know there are extreme dangers in the woods — snakes, bees, bears, mountain lions — but we also know the odds of these dangers hurting us are extremely remote. The most pressing dangers on a hike are falling, getting lost and succumbing to hypothermia. So we watch our footing, carry our maps and first aid kits, and make sure we’ve got enough gear to get us through a cold night in the countryside.

5. We respect balance

Hikers appreciate nature’s uncanny knack for nipping here, tucking there, and generally working things out elegantly and efficiently.

6. We embrace change

We never hike the same trail twice, even if it’s the 20th time on the same route. We watch for subtle shifts in the landscape because we know they are inevitable.

7. We don’t mind working up a sweat

Hikers crave the exhilaration of navigating a tricky scree field and huffing it to high summits. We know that difficulty is often what makes something worth doing.

8. We have strength of body and spirit

It’s not just the quads built up on 13 percent grades or the cardio capacity elevated by 13 miles above 12,000 feet. It’s the character we build by setting a goal, crafting a plan and getting it done.

9. We travel light

We leave our baggage at home, take only what we need, and make do with whatever fits into our pack.

10. We look after our own

Hikers help each other. We warning passing hikers of washed-out sections of trail. We give backpackers rides into town. We send for help. We build karma with kindness.

Today I’m doing something similar yet altogether different. I still write, I still edit, I never stopped blogging (it was easier to kick nicotine). I call my new venture Verb Nerd Industries — the link leads to several pages of shenanigans I’ve been implicated in over the years. My life story at a glance:

1961: Born in Peoria, Illinois.

1968: Moved to suburbs of Peoria with family (yes, Peoria had suburbs).

1979: Graduated from Limestone High School (see “Dazed and Confused”; it tells all of our stories).

1982: Lived in Abilene, Texas; assistant-managed a fast food joint called Hot Dog Castle, acquiring sufficient motivation to better myself.

1984: Entered journalism school at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Worked for campus paper called the Daily Egyptian, which was at least 10,000 miles from the Nile.

1988: Started first big-city newspaper job at the Tampa Tribune. Learned the true meaning of sweat.

1991: Married Melissa, next-door neighbor of the guy at the desk next to mine at the Trib.

1993: Moved back to Peoria to work for the Journal Star. Career highlight: compiling a package of stories revealing that the all the rich and famous Peorians got that way after moving away.

1996: Started my first blog, devoted to journalists’ websites. Didn’t realize it was a blog until years later.

1999: Moved to Silicon Valley to see the great Tech Boom up close. Tech Bust ensued as if on cue. Followed all the fun from the front lines at the San Jose Mercury News.

2005: Started Two-Heel Drive, my hiking blog; persisted all these years despite persistent evidence that bloggers rarely hike, and hikers rarely blog.

2009: Second market crash in the space of a decade motivated me to try new things outside the newspaper business. Relocated to North Carolina for the abundance of cheap housing and hiking trails.

2011: Launched Verb Nerd Industries. Avalanche of clients currently poised on a cornice somewhere in the Grand Tetons. Hire me now and beat the crush.

Facebook

I was geeky enough to snag facebook.com/thomasmangan before somebody else did.

Twitter

Twitter was a mildly diverting toy till I discovered a site called Paper.li, which allows you to create an online newspaper from the links posted to Twitter. Now I have four tweets-papers:

• Tom Mangan Daily: Roundup from all the people I follow on Twitter.
• Triad Tweets: News & culture links from the Triad region of North Carolina.
• Hiking & Outdoors Afternoon Update: Cool links for people who like to play in the woods.
• Outdoor Gear Morning Update: Gear news for folks in the trade.

Everytrail.com

I’ve posted dozens of iPhone hiking guides and GPS-enabled travelogues there.

Linked In

Work history and recommendations from colleagues.

I watched everything back then — I still remember the first time I saw Slim Pickens riding that A-bomb to his doom in “Doctor Strangelove.” I had no idea it was a comedy.

Oddly enough, the late-show movie most fixed in my memory involved a black guy trapped in a mine while World War III breaks out. He escapes to a world devoid of people and settles into a strange life in a vacant New York City. Then he finds a woman. Things progress until another guy shows up. He’s white. Naturally, the first instinct of the last three people on earth is a racially charged love triangle.

Today my movie habit is enabled almost entirely by Netflix.com, and my deepest lament is that I’ve seen all the good ones (nearly 1200 titles and counting).

Netflix doesn’t stock every film ever produced (they’re not all out on DVD), but it has enough to keep a fiend like me on the hook. I’ve become a huge fan of foreign flicks, mainly because gobs of great movies are out there if you can deal with the subtitles (I’d rather read subtitles than try to watch dubbed movies; the mouth-not-following-the-words is too distracting).

I’ve seen all the best work of Akira Kurosawa, Japan’s legendary film director. His “Seven Samurai,” remade in the U.S. as “The Magnificent Seven,” tells the story of lowly Japanese peasants who become so fed up with marauding bandits that they hire free-lance samurai warriors to a) save their crops; and b) seek revenge. One of the co-stars is Toshiro Mifune, who also starred as a cunning rogue who plays a town’s feuding factions against each other in the classic Yojimbo, remade as “A Fistful of Dollars” in the spaghetti western that turned Clint Eastwood into a huge star.

Speaking of samurai warriors, thanks to Netflix I stumbled across the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, a great French director whose Le samouraï” was one of the great crime movies of the 1960s. Le samouraï features a square-jawed heartthrob who carefully and precisely kills people for a living. Even better is “Le deuxième souffle” (The Second Wind), featuring a scary-tough bad-ass (hard to imagine in a French film, I know) named “Gu” who breaks out of prison and attempts the epic heist that will let him retire in peace.

I could go on, perhaps to my last keystroke, raving about all the great movies and griping about the bad ones. It’s true they don’t make them like they used to. But good ones keep getting made, and forgotten ones keep getting rediscovered.

Fine time to be a film fiend, no doubt about it.

Funny how necessity recalibrates your intentions. Back in California I’d do almost anything to avoid long drives to trails — it seemed like a crime against nature to spend more time driving than hiking. The reality, though, was there were so many excellent hiking trails in the Bay Area that I could always find an excuse to pair a long hike with a short drive.

On our current end of the country, the situation is almost entirely reversed: it’s crazy to make do with local trails when excellent ones are just a couple hours away. Case in point: Saturday’s hike at Grayson Highlands State Park paired five hours of driving with five hours of hiking. While the Appalachian peaks seem scrawny by Western standards, they are nevertheless mountains that stretch for 1,200 miles from Georgia to Canada. There’s nothing like it within 50 miles of Winston-Salem.

The route up to Grayson Highlands twists, climbs and dives though at least 50 miles of remote two-lane blacktop; I’ve always loved taking these kinds of drives. Seems I now have two reasons to head for the hills.

(I’m sure it’s just a coincidence — not karma or anything — that my luck seems to have been continually improving since my departure from the daily-dose-of-doom industry.)

This is the Yadkin River, taken from Tanglewood Park. Used my iPhone camera.

Entry hallway.

Dining room.

Office.

Bedroom

Living room.

Fireplace.

Hildy says hi.

Bathroom.

Melissa was in here painting and cleaning every day for the past four weeks; I expect she’ll be sleeping for a week.

I’ll gab more about what’s happening in our lives later; just wanted to satisfy the curiosity of anybody who wanted to know what the inside of the place looks like.

Now that we’ve decided to kick back here for awhile, I’ll have to start visiting some of the locales that don’t entail walking on dirt. The triad has museums, musicians and movie houses like any other place. History’s a big deal, seeing as how the region’s most compelling stories predate the Civil War by over 100 years (when the original settlers came here from Pennsylvania and set up shop in an abandon trapper’s cabin — see my hike at Historic Bethabara if you missed it). A man credited with inspiring the beliefs of Salem’s settlers was among the world’s first Protestants; naturally the pope ordered him burned at the stake. We’re talking early 1400s here, so yeah, the stories go way back.

More to come. Here’s hoping it’s interesting in a good way.