When I told my mother I was going to Pennsylvania to meet with Robert Wagner and James Garner, the look on her face was priceless. I knew there were visions of two handsome movie stars dancing in her head, and I hated to burst her bubble. But eventually I had to break into her reverie and explain that the gentlemen in questions were not in fact the matinee idols we all swoon over when we watch them in old movies. No, Bob and Jim (as they prefer to be called, probably so there is no confusion) were two of the individuals I was scheduled to sit down with on our little Evening Sun field trip to Susquehanna County, Pa.

Each of us had a focus during the excursion, and mine were business and agriculture. Which makes perfect sense, of course, since those are two of my primary coverage areas here at Chenango’s hometown daily. Bob works for the USDA National Resource Conservation Service out of the federal agency’s Montrose field office. Jim heads the Susquehanna County Conservation District. I’d arranged to meet with both of them during our fact finding mission.

I’m not going to lie. Initially, I had some reservations about the trip. Not because of any reluctance to see firsthand the impact the natural gas industry has had on Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier. It had more to do with Brian’s decision to choose that particular day to stop smoking.