When my neighbor George Blodgett pulled up into my drive one recent lovely Sunday afternoon, he was wearing his Temple Fire Department cap.

I put on my Temple Bicentennial cap I got five years ago, and that seemed just right, because it was our appreciation of this rural town that was bringing us together. Of course, George has it over me. I’ve only lived here all of my adult life. George has been roaming these hills since he could walk. Blodgetts were living in this town four generations before him, and he’s got a grandchild that makes a 7th generation Blodgett.

George was making good on a promise he made a while back to show me some of the backcountry on his four-wheeler.

Our destination, it turned out, was The Lookout, so named by the Temple Trail Riders, the 150-member ATV club George started three years ago and is president of. The Lookout is a panoramic view near the top of an unnamed hill somewhere between my house and Mt. Blue. Bounded on the northwest by Mt. Blue and the southwest by Bald Mountain in Washington Township, the spectacular view in between looks over the Presidential Range in New Hampshire, with Mt. Washington a bit south of the middle. By George’s measure with his GPS, the grandest mountain in New England is a mere 57 miles away.

According to George, Mark Andrews, another Temple native, created the steep trail to The Lookout for the club after Bob Thorndike gave the club permission to ride his land. George says hundreds of people have made the trip since the trail was opened a year and a half ago.

I’ve been a casual walker through these hills over the years, and admittedly it would have taken me a half a day to walk to The Lookout, and the rest of the day to walk back. On George’s four-wheeler, we took in that view, the original Blodgett family cellar hole under Mt. Blue, and what George said was the last section left of the original trail used by the early settlers in that area in just a couple of hours. We both enjoyed being outdoors, watching the old stone walls roll by, and thinking about the lives of the people who first permanently settled this area.

George didn’t make a convert of me to four-wheelers, though. I still think they’re noisy and expensive, and in the wrong hands dangerous and destructive. I’ve seen wet areas torn up by four-wheelers that will never be the same again. And in our talk, George acknowledged that walking is a healthier choice.

But George did help me to see some things more fairly. He’s done his share of walking over the years. Using four-wheelers, he says, is just being part of our modern times, like taking along the two-way radio and cell phone he carries in case of emergencies. Clubs work hard at establishing a standard of responsible behavior, setting speed limits, posting off-limits areas, working with landowners and responding to complaints. The Temple Trail Riders have helped with backcountry rescues, held community fundraisers, helped work on old cemeteries, and improved trails. They close trails when they’re too wet and build bridges to keep machines out of waterways to prevent the kind of damage that has disturbed me in the past.

What’s more, they bring together a community of people who want to share the outdoors together in the tradition that George was brought up in. I value that too, and I enjoyed my ride with George.

In this contentious election season and these darkly troubling times, it was also pure pleasure to talk over our differences so respectfully. We began by establishing our common ground, our love of the upcountry hills. George took my skepticisms and criticisms openly, saw my point of view, and gave me some new information to think over. Wouldn’t it be remarkable for all of us if people like George were in charge of the public discourse?