PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

My wife and I recentlyspent another 10 days in the Mediterranean on a cruise, the third one for us in that region of the world.

As usual in such ventures, we come away with a few perceptions, not all of them major, earth-shaking thoughts, but each worth remembering.

Here are perceptions from our recent trip:

• The Europeans we met appear – that’s all we have, of course, appearances – to be living okay with the reality of additional terrorist events in that part of the world.

To put a point on it, the day before we flew back to the U.S. from Barcelona, Spain, there appeared to have been a terrorist component in the sequence of events that prompted the Egypt Air plane to go down. This came on top of terrorist atrocities in Paris and Brussels. Still, the folks we encountered appeared to be living with the new realities. Of course, what choice was there for them – or for us?

• This time, we were not in Germany, as we had been on a previous Rhine and Mosel River trip, so we did not come away with major perceptions related to World War II.

In Germany and France, countries that border the Rhine, the effects of World War II were evident, as, of course, they were when we toured the site of the Normandy Invasion, which claimed so many Allied lives, not to mention German lives.

Our perception on the previous trip was that the current generation of Germans do not appear to have World War II on their minds, not surprising because the same could be said of us in this country – a generation or so removed from having to live through that horrible war.

In the Mediterranean this time, we saw only limited effects of the world war, even though we toured small villages in Italy, France and Spain that had seen the war first-hand through damages to buildings and dwellings that mostly have been repaired.

• Forgive this one big thought: Even though World War II is in our rear-view mirror, it is worth never forgetting the terrible excesses of Nazi Germany. Various political commentators in this country have compared what Donald Trump advocates now to what Hitler advocated in 1930s and 1940s Germany. I am one who hopes for even-handed government that tries to solve pressing problems rather that fulminate about them.

• On to a much smaller point. On each trip to Europe, including this most recent one, we have been impressed – call it, more accurately, depressed – with the amount of smoking that occurs in public.   Far more than here in the U.S.

There has to be an effect of this, and not just the second-hand smoke to which we were exposed, but also to the health effects for a generation or more of Europeans who appear unable to give up the tobacco habit. This includes a variety of young people who give the impression of smoking as being cool, no matter what it does to their bodies.

• Many people in Europe continue to live in what, in this country, we might call “tiny houses.” They also live vertically. Far different from here with, often, our substantial square footages and horizontal shaped houses.

The Europeans to whom spoke in such villages as Cuceron, Lourmarin, Bonnieux, Le Coste, Minerbes and Vieux Oppede appeared to be, not just accustomed to their living arrangements, but also to enjoy them.

Not sure our future holds more trips to the Med, but we are planning another river cruise next fall in France in the Bordeaux region.