www.roanoke.com

As my friend Mohan Pokharel and I ambled down the Appalachian Trail and I listened to his rantings, visions of Yakov Smirnoff, the Soviet comedian with his deeply accented signature exclamation -- "America, what a great country!" -- danced in my head. Smirnoff made himself famous on television in the 1980s by humorously contrasting the foibles of Soviet and American societies.

Mohan has been a friend for several years, having met while bicycling on the Huckleberry Trail. Nowadays, we hike together whenever we can, typically on the Appalachian Trail. Long hikes give ample opportunities to profess ideas, and we always enjoy our exchanges.

Mohan is from Nepal, a county sandwiched between giants China and India. It is about the size and shape of Tennessee and is home of the world's largest mountains, including Everest. He earned his doctorate at Virginia Tech, and his wife, three kids and parents live here. I appreciate the view toward America that people such as Mohan, who grew up elsewhere, provide.

For this particular hike, we'd chosen a section of Appalachian Trail near Interior, along Big Stony Creek, in Giles County. The trailhead was difficult to find, and the beautiful new bridge that crossed the creek was devoid of the ubiquitous white blazes that mark the trail. We crossed it and located the trail, which paralleled the creek westward for a couple of miles, on the north side opposite the scattered homes and the road. It was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm winter day. We saw but two other hikers.

Although we were hiking southbound on the trail, it angled northward and ascended Peters Mountain on the Virginia-West Virginia border. Having not spent much time together in recent months, Mohan and I brought each other up to date on our families and activities. Through his thick accent but clear enunciation, he told me he was looking for a job teaching at a university, preferably within the mid-Atlantic area. His wife was doing some substitute teaching. His kids, becoming more Americanized every day, were growing and doing well in school.

After a couple of miles of gently graded climbing, we reached the ridgeline and the junction with West Virginia's Allegheny Trail, where we stopped for lunch. The view to the north into West Virginia was incomplete, mostly blocked by leafless trees.

Mohan talked about his parsimony, brought on both by his relative penury and his culturally inspired disdain for material excess. He said he was happy to have found a $70 pair of trousers on sale for $5. Much of what he buys is sent to his relatives in Katmandu. He said when he was a child, a shirt would be worn until it was in tatters, and then it would be relegated to painting duties, substituting for unavailable paint brushes.

Having experienced a typical, small-town Southwest Virginia, Ozzie and Harriet upbringing, I surprisingly found myself to be a kindred spirit. I showed him the shirt I was wearing that I'd earned at a charity bicycling event, dated 1986.

We both found ourselves bemoaning the excesses and materialism of most of our countrymen. Mohan said he thought the current recession might actually help Americans heal from their "affluenza" and begin to reconnect with the familial and friendship relationships that make life worthwhile. I told him to be careful for what he wished.

But the conversation I initially alluded to concerned our nation's recent foreign policy maneuvers. Unlike such characters as Fox News' Sean Hannity, who sees no fault in anything this country does, Mohan said our tactics, especially under the Bush administration, were excessively belligerent and malevolent. My first thought was to speak in defense of my country, but instead found myself agreeing with him.

We both love this country, my native and his adopted, but that love doesn't preclude our recognition of its faults. Normally a soft-spoken man with an infectious giggle, he was more animated than I'd ever seen him. "Perhaps we should try diplomacy first instead of war," he exclaimed.

At the bottom of the mountain, we decided to walk back on the road to see another viewpoint and save some time. The roadside was littered with trash, something disgraceful for which we should all be ashamed. One piece of litter was a dead red-tailed hawk. I hoped it had accidentally been hit by a car rather than purposefully killed.

He stopped to use the bathroom at the Forest Service picnic area, and I continued alone toward the car. When he joined me again, he marveled that a remote latrine would be equipped with free toilet paper. America, what a great country!

Michael Abraham lives in Blacksburg and is a businessman and writer.