County Line Quotes

Who says all the lines of love are supposed to match up? I'd never thought about it that way before - that maybe your perfect other wasn't everything you already were, but everything you were never going to be.

At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth. Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock.

[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret.

What is a hobby anyway? Where is the line of demarcation between hobbies and ordinary normal pursuits? I have been unable to answer this question to my own satisfaction. At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. Certainly many of our most satisfying avocations today consist of making something by hand which machines can usually make more quickly and cheaply, and sometimes better. Nevertheless I must in fairness admit that in a different age the mere fashioning of a machine might have been an excellent hobby... Today the invention of a new machine, however noteworthy to industry, would, as a hobby, be trite stuff. Perhaps we have here the real inwardness of our own question: A hobby is a defiance of the contemporary. It is an assertion of those permanent values which the momentary eddies of social evolution have contravened or overlooked. If this is true, then we may also say that every hobbyist is inherently a radical, and that his tribe is inherently a minority. This, however, is serious: Becoming serious is a grievous fault in hobbyists. It is an axiom that no hobby should either seek or need rational justification. To wish to do it is reason enough. To find reasons why it is useful or beneficial converts it at once from an avocation into an industry–lowers it at once to the ignominious category of an 'exercise' undertaken for health, power, or profit. Lifting dumbbells is not a hobby. It is a confession of subservience, not an assertion of liberty.

Crabtree's father was a Pentecostalist preacher somewhere out in Hogscrotum County, MO, and his mother was the editor-in-chief of a magazine for knitting-machine enthusiasts. 'She can make you anything,' went a favorite line of his. 'She made me a queer.' He had been lost to the clutch of Satan since early adolescence and hadn't seen them in years.

A picture of vulnerability, she made the men feel protective and forgiving, happy to use the occasion to help a woman in need. But anyone stepping over a line would see a very different person as County Chief Woo witnessed.

We need only to close our eyes and we are back on the Third Line, walking up the lane, through the yard and entering the bright, warm kitchen. We are home again.

Mr. Edwards admired the well-built, pleasant house and heartily enjoyed the good dinner. But he said he was going on West with the train when it pulled out. Pa could not persuade him to stay longer. "I'm aiming to go far West in the spring," he said. "This here, country, it's too settled up for me. The politicians are a-swarming in already, and ma'am if'n there's any worse pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians. Why, they'll tax the lining out'n a man's pockets to keep up these here county-seat towns..." "Feller come along and taxed me last summer. Told me I got to put in every last thing I had. So I put in Tom and Jerry, my horses, at fifty dollars apiece, and my oxen yoke, Buck and Bright, I put in at fifty, and my cow at thirty five. 'Is that all you got?' he says. Well I told him I'd put in five children I reckoned was worth a dollar apiece. 'Is that all?' he says. 'How about your wife?' he says. 'By Mighty!' I says to him. 'She says I don't own her and I don't aim to pay no taxes on her,' I says. And I didn't.

I sit in happy meditation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook.

Of course, this memory makes me sorrowful now, for it anyone ever knew the shape of me, it was Amelia - and not just the outer lines of me, either, but all my innards as well. She was as necessary as the sun to me. She was the quiet heat that shimmered inside my shadow and made it live, and without her, I am a little darker.

...I could see the genius in allowing future to evolve. You could create momentum. You could launch something and see where it goes. You couldn't line everything up, like so many dominoes, and make everything fall into place.

Gate C22 At gate C22 in the Portland airport a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed a woman arriving from Orange County. They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking, the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island, like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing. Neither of them was young. His beard was gray. She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish kisses like the ocean in the early morning, the way it gathers and swells, sucking each rock under, swallowing it again and again. We were all watching– passengers waiting for the delayed flight to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots, the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could taste the kisses crushed in our mouths. But the best part was his face. When he drew back and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost as though he were a mother still open from giving birth, as your mother must have looked at you, no matter what happened after–if she beat you or left you or you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth. The whole wing of the airport hushed, all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body, her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses, little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth. Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock. During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it’s fun to do. But there’s a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their “low contracted prejudices.” And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace, rather than fear, the cosmic perspective.

It seems right now that all I’ve ever done in my life is making my way here to you.’ I could see that Rosie could not place the line from The Bridges of Madison County that had produced such a powerful emotional reaction on the plane. She looked confused. ‘Don, what are you…what have you done to yourself?’ ‘I’ve made some changes.’ ‘Big changes.’ ‘Whatever behavioural modifications you require from me are a trivial price to pay for having you as my partner.’ Rosie made a downwards movement with her hand, which I could not interpret. Then she looked around the room and I followed her eyes. Everyone was watching. Nick had stopped partway to our table. I realised that in my intensity I had raised my voice. I didn’t care. ‘You are the world’s most perfect woman. All other women are irrelevant. Permanently. No Botox or implants will be required. ‘I need a minute to think,’ she said. I automatically started the timer on my watch. Suddenly Rosie started laughing. I looked at her, understandably puzzled at this outburst in the middle of a critical life decision. ‘The watch,’ she said. ‘I say “I need a minute” and you start timing. Don is not dead. 'Don, you don’t feel love, do you?’ said Rosie. ‘You can’t really love me.’ ‘Gene diagnosed love.’ I knew now that he had been wrong. I had watched thirteen romantic movies and felt nothing. That was not strictly true. I had felt suspense, curiosity and amusement. But I had not for one moment felt engaged in the love between the protagonists. I had cried no tears for Meg Ryan or Meryl Streep or Deborah Kerr or Vivien Leigh or Julia Roberts. I could not lie about so important a matter. ‘According to your definition, no.’ Rosie looked extremely unhappy. The evening had turned into a disaster. 'I thought my behaviour would make you happy, and instead it’s made you sad.’ ‘I’m upset because you can’t love me. Okay?’ This was worse! She wanted me to love her. And I was incapable. Gene and Claudia offered me a lift home, but I did not want to continue the conversation. I started walking, then accelerated to a jog. It made sense to get home before it rained. It also made sense to exercise hard and put the restaurant behind me as quickly as possible. The new shoes were workable, but the coat and tie were uncomfortable even on a cold night. I pulled off the jacket, the item that had made me temporarily acceptable in a world to which I did not belong, and threw it in a rubbish bin. The tie followed. On an impulse I retrieved the Daphne from the jacket and carried it in my hand for the remainder of the journey. There was rain in the air and my face was wet as I reached the safety of my apartment.

I sit in happy mediation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue to eagerness, whether its object prove true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world!

Stop the car,” I said suddenly, just before we crossed the county line. Before the pickup even came to a complete stop, I opened my door and hopped out, throwing up my dinner, completely splattering the shoulder of the highway. On the growing list of Undignified Moments of My Life, it assumed a very high position.

The best part of being a nanny, Katya thought, was reading children’s books aloud to enraptured children like Tricia, for no one had read such books aloud to her when she’d been a little girl. There hadn’t been such books in the Spivak household on County Line Road, nor would there have been any time for such interludes.

We stepped a little quicker, laughed a little louder and chatted over the fences a little longer. We gathered bouquets of wildflowers, dined on fresh strawberries and began to ride our bikes up and down the Third Line again. We ran up grassy hills and rolled back down through the young clover, feeling light and giddy, free from our heavy boots and coats. There were trilliums to pick for Mother and tadpoles to catch and keep in a jar. Spring had come at last to Bathurst Township and was she ever worth the wait!

I let my towel drop to the carpet. Nakedness stared at nakedness, and nakedness smiled.

[Theodore] Roosevelt had long ago discovered that the more provincial the supplicants, the less able were they to understand that their need was not unique: that he was not yearning to travel two thousand miles on bad trains to support the reelection campaign of a county sheriff, or to address the congregation of a new chapel in a landscape with no trees. His refusal, no matter how elaborately apologetic, was received more often in puzzlement than anger. Imaginatively challenged folks, for whom crossing a state line amounted to foreign travel, could not conceive that the gray-blue eyes inspecting them had, over the past year, similarly scrutinized Nandi warriors, Arab mullahs, Magyar landowners, French marshals, Prussian academics, or practically any monarch or minister of consequence in Europe -- not to mention the maquettes in Rodin’s studio, and whatever dark truths flickered in the gaze of dying lions. From COLONEL ROOSEVELT, p. 104.

(I have seldom crossed the city line of Pico Mundo and have never been beyond the boundaries of Maravilla County) The joys of life can be found anywhere. Far places only offer exotic ways to suffer.

Most people who wonder why our politics are so corrupt can’t draw the line from racist theories of limited democracy to today’s system, but the small group of white men who are funding the effort to turn back the clock on political equality can lay claim to a long ideological pedigree: from the original property requirement to people like John C. Calhoun, who advocated states’ rights and limited government in defense of slavery, to the Supreme Court justices who decided Shelby County and Citizens United. Over the past few decades, a series of money-in-politics lawsuits, including Citizens United, have overturned anticorruption protections, making it possible for a wealthy individual to give more than $3.5 million to a party and its candidates in an election cycle, for corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums to get candidates elected or defeated, and for secret money to sway elections. The result is a racially skewed system of influence and electoral gatekeeping that invalidates the voices of most Americans.

I remember the first time I ever saw you, the day you came. L.J. and I were so excited about this new person that came into the family like a storm blowing over the Bradshaw’s. We’d never seen a Negro before.

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system—right here—through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow.

Life is a constant state of exploration and evolution. Twelve years ago, I wrote that I was on a journey of discovery and change. This has turned out to be the one phrase that has stayed true throughout all the alterations in my life and in my way of thinking.

What I really wanted to do was linger in the tidy lines that Marcus had scored into the earth. I wanted to sit in the exact center of the spiral and wait for the plants to unfurl themselves. I wanted them to climb and rove over my limbs until I burst into bloom with them.

When he crossed the line into Shelby County, he removed his badge, tossing the five-point star inside the glove box. It slid against a half-empty pint of Wild Turkey he'd forgotten was in there, clinking softly, a siren call he left unanswered for the moment. He felt naked without his beloved badge but also strangely protected by the anonymity of its absence. Without the star, he would draw no undue attention, make no advertisement of his presence to any rank-and-file Brotherhood in the county, rabid dogs always on the hunt. And no word would get back to Houston, where he was stationed, that he was poking around something, unauthorized by his superiors, something he guessed he did hold an outsize interest in as a cop, as a Texan, and as a man. In fact as long as he wasn't wearing the Rangers star, they couldn't stop him from doing any damn thing. Without the badge, he was just a black man traveling the highway alone.

On harsh, frigid January days, when the winds are relentless and the snow piles up around us, I often think of our small feathered friends back on the Third Line. I wonder if the old feeder is still standing in the orchard and if anyone thinks to put out a few crumbs and some bacon drippings for our beautiful, hungry, winter birds. In the stark, white landscape they provided a welcome splash of colour and their songs gave us hope through the long, silent winter.

(Charles Morgan, Jr., Southern Director of the ACLU in 1966, upon seeing conditions in the Jefferson County jail): ...I knew that [Southern whites] would have annihilated blacks had they been more literate and less useful. In Hitler's Germany armbands identified Jews. Those with black skin could have been annihilated more easily. But they were the labor pool with which to break strikes. They served as the pickers of cotton, the diggers of ditches. They emptied bedpans and cleaned the outhouses of our lives. Uneducated, property-less, disenfranchised, and excluded from justice, except as defendants, they were no threat to whites. While they remained useful and didn't get 'out of line,' their lives were assured, for no matter how worthless lower-class white folks said blacks were, the rich, well born, and able upper-class whites knew that they and black folks were really the only people indispensably required by Our Southern Way of Life. (188)

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, Across the meadows bare and brown, The windows of the wayside inn Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves Their crimson curtains rent and thin.” “As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams, Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; But noon and night, the panting teams Stop under the great oaks, that throw Tangles of light and shade below, On roofs and doors and window-sills. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay, Through the wide doors the breezes blow, The wattled cocks strut to and fro, And, half effaced by rain and shine, The Red Horse prances on the sign. Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode Deep silence reigned, save when a gust Went rushing down the county road, And skeletons of leaves, and dust, A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death, And through the ancient oaks o'erhead Mysterious voices moaned and fled. These are the tales those merry guests Told to each other, well or ill; Like summer birds that lift their crests Above the borders of their nests And twitter, and again are still. These are the tales, or new or old, In idle moments idly told; Flowers of the field with petals thin, Lilies that neither toil nor spin, And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse Hung in the parlor of the inn Beneath the sign of the Red Horse. Uprose the sun; and every guest, Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed For journeying home and city-ward; The old stage-coach was at the door, With horses harnessed, long before The sunshine reached the withered sward Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar Murmured: "Farewell forevermore. Where are they now? What lands and skies Paint pictures in their friendly eyes? What hope deludes, what promise cheers, What pleasant voices fill their ears? Two are beyond the salt sea waves, And three already in their graves. Perchance the living still may look Into the pages of this book, And see the days of long ago Floating and fleeting to and fro, As in the well-remembered brook They saw the inverted landscape gleam, And their own faces like a dream Look up upon them from below.

WE ARE We are the lost ones Seeking refuge in dark alleys Told we are not forgotten We are a past generation's hope Asking daily for forgiveness Viewed as misbegotten We are restorers of humanity Who punished betrayers of justice Now the hangman in his own noose We are the select few Wandering parks and streets Lost in a sea of endless faces We are the faded photographs Stored in an attic Yearning to finish our missions We are both the young and the old Poised on the cliff's edge Thinking of a last goodnight We are our nation's warriors Destined to become Line-items in a county's budget

Some days it seems like every lowlife in town has Tail ’Em and Nail ’Em on their grease-stained Rolodex. A number of phone messages have piled up on the answering machine, breathers, telemarketers, even a few calls to do with tickets currently active. After some triage on the playback, Maxine returns an anxious call from a whistle-blower at a snack-food company over in Jersey which has been secretly negotiating with ex-employees of Krispy Kreme for the illegal purchase of top-secret temperature and humidity settings on the donut purveyor’s “proof box,” along with equally classified photos of the donut extruder, which however now seem to be Polaroids of auto parts taken years ago in Queens, Photoshopped and whimsically at that. “I’m beginning to think something’s funny about this deal,” her contact’s voice trembling a little, “maybe not even legit.” “Maybe, Trevor, because it’s a criminal act under Title 18?” “It’s an FBI sting operation!” Trevor screams. “Why would the FBI—” “Duh-uh? Krispy Kreme? On behalf of their brothers in law enforcement at all levels?” “All right. I’ll talk to them at the Bergen County DA, maybe they’ve heard something—” “Wait, wait, somebody’s coming, now they saw me, oh! maybe I better—” The line goes dead. Always happens.

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, Across the meadows bare and brown, The windows of the wayside inn Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves Their crimson curtains rent and thin. As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams, Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; But noon and night, the panting teams Stop under the great oaks, that throw Tangles of light and shade below, On roofs and doors and window-sills. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay, Through the wide doors the breezes blow, The wattled cocks strut to and fro, And, half effaced by rain and shine, The Red Horse prances on the sign. Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode Deep silence reigned, save when a gust Went rushing down the county road, And skeletons of leaves, and dust, A moment quickened by its breath, Shuddered and danced their dance of death, And through the ancient oaks o'erhead Mysterious voices moaned and fled. These are the tales those merry guests Told to each other, well or ill; Like summer birds that lift their crests Above the borders of their nests And twitter, and again are still. These are the tales, or new or old, In idle moments idly told; Flowers of the field with petals thin, Lilies that neither toil nor spin, And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse Hung in the parlor of the inn Beneath the sign of the Red Horse. Uprose the sun; and every guest, Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed For journeying home and city-ward; The old stage-coach was at the door, With horses harnessed,long before The sunshine reached the withered sward Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar Murmured: "Farewell forevermore. Where are they now? What lands and skies Paint pictures in their friendly eyes? What hope deludes, what promise cheers, What pleasant voices fill their ears? Two are beyond the salt sea waves, And three already in their graves. Perchance the living still may look Into the pages of this book, And see the days of long ago Floating and fleeting to and fro, As in the well-remembered brook They saw the inverted landscape gleam, And their own faces like a dream Look up upon them from below.

growing up we always had a pack of dogs, usually four held in prestige among many familiars them and a few cats we let indoors though we loved every bird, mouse, tadpole, crayfish froze in a spring frost we grew more conscious of weather wide skies read power lines hum dove coos the leaves turnt dirt melt change on the breeze creaks and rain the gravel trucks of spring full by slow then empties in summer barrelling too fast past our hillbilly stake mother threw potatoes later hard to explain to the police who got called in from a county over drove out to say, "ma'am, you can't throw potatoes at trucks" then all polite as we stood with our pack and stuck to our guns

A native is a man or creature or plant indigenous to a limited geographical area - a space boundaried and defined by mountains, rivers, or coastline (not by latitudes, longitudes, or state and county lines), with its own peculiar mixture of weeds, trees, bugs, birds, flowers, streams, hills, rocks, and critters (including people), its own nuances of rain, wind, and seasonal change. Native intelligence develops through an unspoken or soft spoken relationship with these interwoven things: it evolves as the native involves himself in his region. A non-native awakes in the morning in a body in a bed in a room in a building on a street in a county in a state in a nation. A native awakes in the in the center of a little cosmos - or a big one, if his intelligence is vast - and he wears this cosmos like a robe, senses the barely perceptible shiftings, migrations, moods, and machinations of its creatures, its growing green things, its earth and sky. Native intelligence is what Huck Finn had rafting the Mississippi, what Thoreau had by his pond, what Kerouac had in Desolation Lookout and lost entirely the instant he caught a whiff of any city. But some have it in cities - like the Artful Dodger, picking his way through a crowd of London pockets; like Mother Teresa in the Calcutta slums. Sissy Hankshaw had it on freeways, Woody Guthrie in crowds of fruit pickers, Ghandi in jails. Almost everybody has a dab of it wherever he or she feels most at home..

I feel sick. Ashamed. Still scared. He’s not gonna believe me. He’s gonna twist it until it lines up with the way he sees the world, and then this impossible thing between us will crack and shrivel and die. There’s something worse than sneaking away and never seeing him again. It’s cowering in this room, telling him the truth, watching him weigh up the value of people and their word, and living through the exact moment when he ranks me less than. It’s keeping my head up while he breaks my heart, and I’m already wrung out and so damn tired. I don’t know where to find the strength. But I will. I’ve picked myself up off the floor before. It’s cold comfort, but it’s enough. He’s turned his back on me before. I survived then. I’ll survive now.

Docketing a judgment slapped it on a tenant’s credit report. If the tenant came to own any property in Milwaukee County in the next decade, the docketed judgment placed a lien on that property, severely limiting a new homeowner’s ability to refinance or sell.14 To landlords, docketing a judgment was a long-odds bet on a tenant’s future. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the line a tenant would want to get her credit in order and would approach her old landlord, asking to repay the debt. “Debt with interest,” the landlord could respond, since money judgments accrued interest at an annual rate that would be the envy of any financial portfolio: 12 percent. For the chronically and desperately poor whose credit was already wrecked, a docketed judgment was just another shove deeper into the pit. But for the tenant who went on to land a decent job or marry and then take another tentative step forward, applying for student loans or purchasing a first home—for that tenant, it was a real barrier on the already difficult road to self-reliance and security.

They had been men generally built in the same mould, inheriting each from his father the same virtues and the same vices, — men who would have lived, each, as his father had lived before him, had not the new ways of the world gradually drawn away with them, by an invisible magnetism, the upcoming Dale of the day, — not indeed in any case so moving him as to bring him up to the spirit of the age in which he lived, but dragging him forward to a line in advance of that on which his father had trodden. They had been obstinate men; believing much in themselves; just according to their ideas of justice; hard to their tenants but not known to be hard even by the tenants themselves, for the rules followed had ever been the rules on the Allington estate; imperious to their wives and children, but imperious within bounds, so that no Mrs Dale had fled from her lord’s roof, and no loud scandals had existed between father and sons; exacting in their ideas as to money, expecting that they were to receive much and to give little, and yet not thought to be mean, for they paid their way, and gave money in parish charity and in county charity.

Scrolling through the rest of the 3,500 documents in Michelle’s hard drive, one comes upon a file titled “RecentDNAresults,” which features the EAR’s Y-STR markers (short tandem repeats on the Y chromosome that establish male-line ancestry), including the elusive rare PGM marker. Having the Golden State Killer’s DNA was always the one ace up this investigation’s sleeve. But a killer’s DNA is only as good as the databases we can compare it to. There was no match in CODIS. And there was no match in the California penal system’s Y-STR database. If the killer’s father, brothers, or uncles had been convicted of a felony in the past sixteen years, an alert would have gone to Paul Holes or Erika Hutchcraft (the current lead investigator in Orange County). They would have looked into the man’s family, zeroed in on a member who was in the area of the crimes, and launched an investigation. But they had nothing. There are public databases that the DNA profile could be used to match, filled not with convicted criminals but with genealogical buffs. You can enter the STR markers on the Y chromosome of the killer into these public databases and try to find a match, or at least a surname that could help you with the search.

Although many reviews have compared my novels to those written by Garrison Keillor, Phil Gulley, or Jan Karon, I personally try to stay clear of comparing and contrasting one author or series to another. What I can say, though, is that Lumby — its valleys, streets, townsfolk and stories — is an escape...a gentle, quirky sanctuary from life's harsher realities. At the heart of the town is the decency, levity and honorableness of good people who are carving out the best lives they know how. It is a town that is reminiscent of yesteryear, a community as it was intended to be—caring, forthright, ethical and authentic. And within that wonderful place, humor is a mainstay and an antidote (as I think it is in life) where the moral compass always points due north unless someone has dropped it in the PortiPotty at the county fair. With the help of the two well-intentioned inn keepers, the monks from Saint Cross Abbey (who make a tremendous rum sauce), a trustworthy newspaper publisher and a cast of unforgettable characters along Main Street, Lumby has a place in all of our hearts. From Christian Book Previews: "The Lumby Lines goes straight to the heart. The simplicity, humor, and downright friendliness make reading it a pleasure. Readers will close the book with a sigh of contentment and a desire to visit Lumby again. The author has faithfully carved out a slice of small-town living and topped it off with a large helping of humor. This reviewer can't wait for her next visit to Lumby!

I call an ambulance and do a mini-intake over the phone but they will not come to help when they hear his background. He is a felon, they say. You have to call the police. I beg. Please help us. This isn’t a criminal matter. They refuse. They disconnect the line. My mother and I go back and forth and decide we have no other choice. I call the local law enforcement office and explain everything. I beg them to go slow. I tell them Monte’s history with police because by now I know how he was beaten and tortured by LA County sheriffs. Two rookies arrive and they are young as fuck. I meet them downstairs. I ask them, What will you do if my brother gets violent? Monte’s never been violent but I am trying to prepare for anything. I’m—we’re—in a place we’ve never been. We’ll just taser him, one responds. No! My God! Absolutely not! I refuse to let them past me until they promise me they won’t hurt him, and when they finally do, I lead them into the apartment, explaining to Monte as I walk through the door, It’s okay. It’s okay. They’re just here to help. And my brother. My big, loving, unwell, good-hearted brother, my brother who has rescued small animals and my brother who has never, never hurt another human being, drops to his knees and begins to cry. His hands are in the air. He is sobbing. Please don’t take me back. Please don’t take me back. I stop cold. I tell the police they have to leave and they do and I get down on the floor. I curl up next to Monte. I hold him as much as he’ll allow.

The most servile Negroes are suspect, and every means is used to impress upon them the power of the White Citizens Councils. Even police brutality can be put to good use. An incident in Ruleville, Sunflower County, birthplace of the Council, will illustrate the point. Preston Johns, Negro renter on Senator Eastland's plantation near Blanc, is a "good nigger who knows his place." One day in May 1955, Preston's wife got into a fight with another Negro woman in the Jim Crow section of the Ruleville theater. The manager threw the women out and notified the police. While the police were questioning the women, Preston's daughter came up to see what was happening to her mother. Without warning, a policeman struck her over the head with the butt of his gun. She fell to the pavement bleeding badly. The police left her there. Someone went for her father. When he came up, the police threatened to kill him. Preston left and called Mr. Scruggs, one of Eastland's cronies. After half an hour, Scruggs came and permitted the girl to be lifted from the street and taken to the hospital. When Scruggs left, he yelled to the Negroes across the street: "You'll see who your friend is. If it wasn't for us Citizens Council members, she'd have near about died." One old Negro answered back, "I been tellin' these niggers Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Eastland is de best friends dey got." A few days later, Senator Eastland came to Ruleville to look the situation over. Many Negroes lined the streets and beamed at their "protector.

Each year Hamilton’s largest public events—Confederate Memorial Day, General Robert E. Lee’s birthday, and numerous gatherings of the United Confederate Veterans’ Williams Camp Meeting, made up of every old veteran still living in the county—drove home these messages, at the heart of which was the eternal crusade for white superiority. With whites unwilling to face up to the wrong their leaders had wrought by starting and continuing a hopeless war, or to bring their economy in line with reality, or to democratize their system after the war to welcome blacks and poor whites alike, the main thrust of southern life became the preservation of its traditions and the creation of myths. For fifty years they’d carried their propaganda north, laced with lurid tales of black inferiority, disease, and criminality. They’d been enormously successful in this. Since the early 1900s, mainstream, even liberal, magazines like Harpers, the Atlantic Monthly, and Good Housekeeping often played their tune.

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The idea to create this blog was based on the fact that the world is facing severe issues regarding water. It's availability, quality, and most importantly, the drawbacks of hard water. Water is hard in each major city of the world, and in various counties and villages too. People rely on well water or the water supply line by the municipality. That is merely soft with no requirement of further treatment.

The public outcry grew, dampening enthusiasm for the project at the LACTC. Jacki Bacharach, a Valley native who now lived on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the far southern part of the county, headed the committee studying various Valley routes. She held numerous community hearings that resulted in an outpouring of negativity from local residents. “When the Blue Line was being built, I would go to Compton and Watts a lot to go to meetings, without problem,” Bacharach said, referring to South Los Angeles communities with a reputation for crime. “But when I went to the Valley to do the public hearings for the development of rail, I asked for an escort to my car, because those people were like crazy people. They were threatening, they felt more entitled, and they were just not really nice people to deal with. And I grew up in the Valley, and I kept thinking these are ‘my people.’ Nobody could agree with anybody.

On one of his fishing trips to the county, Ted Williams was rumored to have spent time at the Bide-a-Wee field-testing part of the line of fishing tackle the Red Sox legend endorsed for Sears and Roebuck.

We both know I was never going to make it to thirty, brother. Take care of her. “P-p-lease, G-G-od, p-p-please don’t take them! Please!” I race away with the taste of Dominic’s blood on my lips, coating my hands as I drive past the county line and exit onto the highway toward a future I no longer want.

He dragged his palm along the flat of the railing, pressing jagged nailheads into his hand to test the dead skin, the scarring, see how deep he could get into his flesh before he felt anything.

As historian Theda Perdue and anthropologist Jack Campisi have noted separately, the closing of all-Indian schools created a crisis for southeastern Indians. When institutions like the East Carolina Indian School in Sampson County, North Caroline, locked its doors, a symbol of Indian pride, independence, and identity was closed as well. Despite the negative publicity surrounding integration, some silver lining soon appeared. The loss of schools prompted many groups to establish formal tribal entities in place of old board of education and related committees.

One Headlight" So long ago, I don't remember when That's when they say I lost my only friend Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease As I listened through the cemetery trees I seen the sun coming up at the funeral at dawn The long broken arm of human law Now it always seemed such a waste She always had a pretty face So I wondered how she hung around this place Hey, come on try a little Nothing is forever There's got to be something better than In the middle But me and Cinderella We put it all together We can drive it home With one headlight She said it's cold It feels like Independence Day And I can't break away from this parade But there's got to be an opening Somewhere here in front of me Through this maze of ugliness and greed And I seen the sun up ahead At the county line bridge Saying all is good and nothingness is dead We'd run until she's out of breath She ran until there's nothing left She hit the end, it's just her window ledge Hey, come on try a little Nothing is forever There's got to be something better than In the middle But me and Cinderella We put it all together We can drive it home With one headlight This place is old It feels just like a beat up truck I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn What smells of cheap wine and cigarettes This place is always such a mess Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn I'm so alone, I feel just like somebody else Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same But somewhere here in between the city walls of dying dreams I think her death it must be killing me Hey Hey Hey, come on try a little Nothing is forever There's got to be something better than In the middle But me and Cinderella We put it all together We can drive it home With one headlight The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse (1996)

of the other revelations and confirmations that came out of his conversation with Gabriela. Bosch had asked her how she had learned of Santanello’s death in Vietnam and she said she knew in her heart that he had been killed when a week went by and she did not receive a letter from him. He had never gone that long without writing her. Her intuition was sadly confirmed when later she saw a story in the newspaper about how the shooting down of a single helicopter in Vietnam had hit Southern California particularly hard. All the Marines on the chopper had California hometowns and had previously been stationed at El Toro Marine Air Base in Orange County. The lone corpsman who was killed had trained at Camp Pendleton in San Diego after being raised in Oxnard. Gabriela also told Bosch that Dominick’s face was on one of the murals at the park. She had put it there many years before. It was on the mural called the Face of Heroes—several depictions of men and women forming one face. Bosch remembered seeing the mural as he had walked through the park earlier that day. “Here you are, sir,” the clerk said to Bosch. “You pay at the window to your left.” Bosch took the document from the clerk and proceeded to the cash window. He studied it as he walked and saw the name Dominick Santanello listed as father. He realized how close he was to finishing the journey Whitney Vance had sent him on. He was disappointed that the old man would not be on hand at the finish line. He was soon back on the 5 and heading north.

Well, all I can tell you is every Jewish man I come across is making a move on me.” Not funny. By “curving” this language, the writers came up with a classic line. Who knows how many drafts it took? ELAINE: Well, something's goin' on here, 'cause every able-bodied Israelite in the county is drivin’ pretty strong to the hoop.

infirmities amount to the same sentence: the narrowing of life at the far tip of the diamond. Step by step, the stomping grounds of these friends had shrunk from the world itself, to their country, to their county, to their home, and finally to a single room where, blinded, breathless, forgetful, they are destined to end their days. Though Abacus had no infirmities to speak of yet, his world too was shrinking. He too had watched as the outer limits of his life had narrowed from the world at large, to the island of Manhattan, to that book-lined office in which he awaited with a philosophical resignation the closing of the finger and thumb. And then this . . . This! This extraordinary turn of events. A little boy from Nebraska appears at his doorstep with a gentle demeanor and

Before minimizing population differences became common, most states could largely avoid splitting counties. The narrowing of the population deviations demanded by courts has necessitated more county splits. Splitting counties reached new heights in the 1990s when jurisdictions believed that they had an obligation to maximize the number of minority districts. Today, legislatures often violate county lines in order to pack members of a single party into a district. Some majority-minority districts continued to split counties as the versions of Florida-5 and North Carolina-1 and -12 put into effect in 2013, with the Florida district and North Carolina-12 being elongated, narrow strips that did not contain any entire county.

Brunell points out that maintenance of communities of interest and respect for county lines will conflict to the extent that communities of interest spread across county boundaries.19 This

In England Have My Bones, he describes Buckinghamshire in a similar way – through what it is not. His county lacks outstanding qualities, beauty and historical significance, and so it avoids the attention of the world. It is safe. When White goes on to explain how Buckinghamshire ‘concealed its individuality in order to preserve it’ but is ‘secretly exuberant in its private way’ you realise that he is writing about his own character. More disguises. The mirror works both ways. The lines between the man and landscape blur. When White writes of his love for the countryside, at heart he is writing about a hope that he might be able to love himself.

Cottonmouth

Influences I’d list would be J. P. S. Brown, the author of The Forests of the Night and Jim Kane, who is and always will be one of my favorite authors, along with Steinbeck (The Pearl), Carlos Castaneda (The Teachings of Don Juan), Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses), and Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano). There are other, nonfiction influences such as Shod with Iron by border patrolman C. M. Newsome, The Texas Sheriff: Lord of the County Line by Thad Sitton, and Bill Jordan’s No Second Place Winner.

Her father had grown up hunting possums and squirrels in the red maple and dogwoods of McCreary County, Kentucky, right on the Tennessee line.

The silver lining is that people have stopped busting my chops. I confronted Dad about the phone calls, and I check in every day, and he says they’ve stopped. I have no idea if he’s blowing smoke up my ass or not, but he seems more chill. Then there’s the added bonus that having Cash around drives Toby nuts. The downside is that Toby’s decided to turn up the PDA with his new girl, Samantha, to twelve. And I don’t care. I really, really don’t. I don’t want him back. I don’t miss feeling the way I felt with him—at all. But I know he’s doing it to mess with me, even though he’d never admit it, probably not even to himself. I have to act like it’s fine. I’m chill. And that’s too much like how it was being in a relationship with him. Playing it cool reminds me of how long I had shit in my mouth and didn’t say a word. So I’m constantly flustered, clumsy, hot, and cranky. I can’t possibly seem like a woman with a new boyfriend, but people buy it ‘cause Cash Wall says it’s so. And of course, if he showed the slightest bit of interest in me—out of guilt or pity or whatever—I’d fall over myself saying yes, please, sign me up. And that’s exactly what it looks like I did. It sucks, and tonight, Cash wants to take it to the next level. It’s Friday, and he’s taking me out on our first fake date. We’re going to Birdy’s Bar. Everyone under thirty goes to Birdy’s on Friday night. I’ve never been. I’m getting ready. On the one hand, I don’t want Cash to think I’m putting forth an effort. On the other, I don’t want everyone in town to gawk at me all night, thinking I really need to put forth more effort. So, I’m wearing a teal, silk cami and my best-fitting jeans. I swapped my nose ring out for a diamond stud and curled my hair in big, beachy waves. I’m going the whole nine yards with primer and foundation and concealer and bronzer and blush and highlighter and powder and setting spray. Toby would hate it. Goes against his oft-stated “natural beauty” preference. It’s been so long since I’ve done my face in

Look, I feel like I’m supposed to be someone I haven’t met yet, you know? Like when I meet him, I’ll know. I’ll say, ‘Well, that’s me, then.’ Something that fits. I don’t know. That’s the way I’m supposed to be going about this.

Wichita: streets - rail - bonds - industry In 1870, Darius Munger and William "Dutch Bill" Greiffenstein filed plats to lay out the first streets in what would go on to become Wichita, Kansas. Wichita incorporated as a city on July 21, 1870.   One year later - on June 22, 1871 -underpinnings for the establishment of ‘Cowtown’ were laid in steel in Wichita. The Wichita and Southwestern Railroad Company was incorporated on June 22, 1871. A few months later, relative to railroad expansion in Wichita, a Sedgwick County, Kansas bond issuance took place. That bond issuance was approved by Sedgwick County voters on August 11, 1871: $200,000 in bonds This bond issuance enabled Wichita to finance the construction of a rail line which connected Wichita to Newton, Kansas. Rail service in Wichita - connecting Wichita to Newton -was a boon for Texas cattlemen. The new rail line -to the north of Texas - enabled shipment of cattle from Texas, on to Wichita. Then further along to Newton. And off to eastern markets in the United States.

The stone from quarries like the Kehoes’ had been carved into skyscrapers in New York and monuments in Washington, DC—places most people around here would never see. It had been used to build temples to the glory of commerce these folks didn’t enjoy, for centers of learning they wouldn’t attend, and for places of worship where they would never kneel. Stone from the next county had been crafted into state houses and courthouses across the country, and even sent to fix up the Pentagon after 9/11. The ground beneath them had been chiseled out and carted away for the far-off business of other places. Close to home, you didn’t see the pretty white stone from their hills turned into monuments to beauty or progress. It was the rubble lining your garden path or maybe, at the end of your days, a slab might mark the resting place of your bones.

rejected as discriminatory took effect just two hours after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Shelby County, affecting hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. Other states previously subject to preclearance redrew district lines, tightened voter-ID requirements, purged voter rolls, canceled same-day registration, restricted early voting, and closed polling places—all in ways that made voting more difficult for minority voters

people using the same methods we see in other areas, like County Lines.

One of the most ambitious men to exploit the timber trade was Hugh F. McDanield, a railroad builder and tie contractor who had come to Fayetteville along with the Frisco. He bought thousands of acres of land within hauling distance of the railroad and sent out teams of men to cut the timber. By the mid-1880s, after a frenzy of cutting in south Washington County, he turned his gaze to the untapped fortune of timber on the steep hillsides of southeast Washington County and southern Madison County, territory most readily accessed along a wide valley long since leveled by the east fork of White River. Mr. McDanield gathered a group of backers and the state granted a charter September 4, 1886, giving authority to issue capital stock valued at $1.5 million, which was the estimated cost to build a rail line through St. Paul and on to Lewisburg, which was a riverboat town on the Arkansas River near Morrilton. McDanield began surveys while local businessman J. F. Mayes worked with property owners to secure rights of way. “On December 4, 1886, a switch was installed in the Frisco main line about a mile south of Fayetteville, and the spot was named Fayette Junction.” Within six months, 25 miles of track had been laid east by southeast through Baldwin, Harris, Elkins, Durham, Thompson, Crosses, Delaney, Patrick, Combs, and finally St. Paul. Soon after, in 1887, the Frisco bought the so-called “Fayetteville and Little Rock” line from McDanield. It was estimated that in the first year McDanield and partners shipped out more than $2,000,000 worth of hand-hacked white oak railroad ties at an approximate value of twenty-five cents each. Mills ran day and night as people arrived “by train, wagon, on horseback, even afoot” to get a piece of the action along the new track, commonly referred to as the “St. Paul line.” Saloons, hotels, banks, stores, and services from smithing to tailoring sprang up in rail stop communities.

Chapter One: The world is flat. I know it is, because for the last five hours the view has been exactly the same. Only the sun has done any traveling, working its long shadows through straight lines of harvested cotton. A few crows shop the furrowed rows for worms, weevils, and grasshoppers. One hops over to inspect the truck I'm lying under, cocks a beady black eye, probably attracted to the shiny metal police-issued handcuffs, my hand in one of the cuffs, dangling from wrist to arm, and finally down to me, Lalla Bains, aero-ag pilot, sometime busybody, meddling where I shouldn't—again. I'm dirt smeared and sweaty, thinking if I get out of this alive, if the killer doesn't return to finish me off, I'll foreswear all future sleuthing. My dad, Caleb my fiancé, my best friend Roxanne, and half of Stanislaus County will be pleased to bear witness to that promise.

Below the roads run the surveyors' lines which squared off the wilderness, and not only made it ready for sale but constructed a shape for county and state government.

A shrewd notary from Extremadura, turned colonist and adventurer, and a one-armed ex-privateer from Limehouse, in the county of Middlesex. Eighty-seven years separate the expeditions, led by Hernan Cortes and Captain Christopher Newport receptively, that laid the foundation of the empires of Spain and Britain on the mainland of America.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. My memory of Diana is not her at an official function, dazzling with her looks and clothes and the warmth of her manner, or even of her offering comfort among the sick, the poor, and the dispossessed. What I remember best is a young woman taking a walk in a beautiful place, unrecognized, carefree, and happy. Diana increasingly craved privacy, a chance “to be normal,” to have the opportunity to do what, in her words, “ordinary people” do every day of their lives--go shopping, see friends, go on holiday, and so on--away from the formality and rituals of royal life. As someone responsible for her security, yet understanding her frustration, I was sympathetic. So when in the spring of the year in which she would finally be separated from her husband, Prince Charles, she yet again raised the suggestion of being able to take a walk by herself, I agreed that such a simple idea could be realized. Much of my childhood had been spent on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, a county in southern England approximately 120 miles from London; I remembered the wonderful sandy beaches of Studland Bay, on the approach to Poole Harbour. The idea of walking alone on miles of almost deserted sandy beach was something Diana had not even dared dream about. At this time she was receiving full twenty-four-hour protection, and it was at my discretion how many officers should be assigned to her protection. “How will you manage it, Ken? What about the backup?” she asked. I explained that this venture would require us to trust each other, and she looked at me for a moment and nodded her agreement. And so, early one morning less than a week later, we left Kensington Palace and drove to the Sandbanks ferry at Poole in an ordinary saloon car. As we gazed at the coastline from the shabby viewing deck of the vintage chain ferry, Diana’s excitement was obvious, yet not one of the other passengers recognized her. But then, no one would have expected the most photographed woman in the world to be aboard the Studland chain ferry on a sunny spring morning in May. As the ferry docked after its short journey, we climbed back into the car and then, once the ramp had been lowered, drove off in a line of cars and service trucks heading for Studland and Swanage. Diana was driving, and I asked her to stop in a sand-covered area about half a mile from the ferry landing point. We left the car and walked a short distance across a wooded bridge that spanned a reed bed to the deserted beach of Shell Bay. Her simple pleasure at being somewhere with no one, apart from me, knowing her whereabouts was touching to see. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her.

The victims I’ve worked with taught me that individuals want to believe they are entitled to justice. My community taught me that when the choice is clear-cut enough, so do entire counties. We have become profoundly discouraged about whether we have such choices. My own experience is that we do, if we are willing to pay the price. We need better data to make decisions based on performance, but getting that data is a matter of passing the right laws requiring crunchable statistics and mandatory public reports. The rest is on us. If Tip O’Neil was right, if all politics is local, then our local district attorneys are the place to start. Crime is local. What we do about it is as close as the nearest voting booth.

Robert was considered by most people in town as a recluse and a bit of a scandal. His nights spent on Whiskey Row with Tom Mix were still fresh in the minds of many. " Excerpt from Yavapai County Line

Lizzie could tell it was a book by the feel and thought that it was probably her father’s new publication. He’d kept the work a secret from everyone in the family but Billy. She expected a western but when the ribbon and paper were undone the simplicity of the title took her breath away and time seemed to stop. It said simply in bold yellow type “Mary” with a painted landscape of the Bradshaw Mountains in the background.

The rest of that summer in Normandy was wet. They fought their way from hedgerow to hedgerow from Caumont to St.-Lo. By the time they walked through the rubble that was left there were only four of them from the original squad, Jack, Saul, Casey, and Victor Sanchez. During August the battle for Normandy was over and a few days later Paris was liberated but the Bloody First was already heading towards Belgium and the Siegfried Line.

His own mother’s blood was mixed between her Lakota mother and a French trapper. His father’s family came from Scotland to escape the English. The differences weren’t a problem with his mother’s people but among his father’s there was intolerance and prejudice.

As the leaders of the Confederacy realized that it needed additional fortification to imprison Union soldiers, they decided upon Andersonville, Georgia because of its location: “In late 1863, the Confederacy found that it needed to construct additional prisoner of war camps to house captured Union soldiers waiting to be exchanged. As leaders discussed where to place these new camps, former Georgia governor, Major General Howell Cobb stepped forward to suggest the interior of his home state. Citing southern Georgia's distance from the front lines, relative immunity to Union cavalry raids, and easy access to railroads, Cobb was able to convince his superiors to build a camp in Sumter County.

oaks, the forest opened up and we flew in an oval pattern around the scene. The grille of a blue Mustang was nosed up against an earthen barrier, the vehicle’s doors open. Two bodies, both male, were sprawled nearby in the grass. Between the long drying sheds, three gray, refrigerated semitrailers were lined nose to tail like elephants on parade. The truck windows and windshields were shot through and spiderwebbed. Behind the last semi was a black Dodge Viper with two dead men in the front seat. The pilot landed out by the highway, where a perimeter had been established. After checking in with the Virginia State Police lieutenant and the county sheriff, we went to the crime scene on foot. It was hot. Insects buzzed and drummed in the forest around the tobacco facility. Truck engines idling swallowed the sound of blowflies gathering around the Viper. “They’ve swept their way out again,” Mahoney said when we were ten yards from the Dodge. I looked at the glistening dirt road between the Viper and us. I saw faint grooves in the moist dirt and said, “Or raked.” The door to the muscle car was ajar. The window was down. The driver had taken a slug through the back of the skull, left occipital. Blood spattered the windshield and almost covered two bullet holes, one exiting, and one entering. The passenger in the Viper had been rocked back, his left eye a bloody socket and a spray of carnage behind him.

East Side High became well known some years ago when its former principal, a colorful and controversial figure named Joe Clark, was given special praise by U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett. Bennett called the school “a mecca of education” and paid tribute to Joe Clark for throwing out 300 students who were thought to be involved with violence or drugs. “He was a perfect hero,” says a school official who has dinner with me the next evening, “for an age in which the ethos was to cut down on the carrots and increase the sticks. The day that Bennett made his visit, Clark came out and walked the hallways with a bullhorn and a bat. If you didn’t know he was a principal, you would have thought he was the warden of a jail. Bennett created Joe Clark as a hero for white people. He was on the cover of Time magazine. Parents and kids were held in thrall after the president endorsed him. “In certain respects, this set a pattern for the national agenda. Find black principals who don’t identify with civil rights concerns but are prepared to whip black children into line. Throw out the kids who cause you trouble. It’s an easy way to raise the average scores. Where do you put these kids once they’re expelled? You build more prisons. Two thirds of the kids that Clark threw out are in Passaic County Jail. “This is a very popular approach in the United States today. Don’t provide the kids with a new building. Don’t provide them with more teachers or more books or more computers. Don’t even breathe a whisper of desegregation. Keep them in confinement so they can’t subvert the education of the suburbs. Don’t permit them ‘frills’ like art or poetry or theater. Carry a bat and tell them they’re no good if they can’t pass the state exam. Then, when they are ruined, throw them into prison. Will it surprise you to be told that Paterson destroyed a library because it needed space to build a jail?

There is an unmarked line in Utah, somewhere among the flatworm lengths of invisible county borders, past the point when you can say you’re headed South and are now already in it and just going further down, where the plain opens forward and the plateaus are too high on either side for you to see the sun and so the sun seems to come from the ground itself. He watched the earth shed its green skin and dry into tan bruises of acacia bramble and sand–the top fingers of the desert, spread upon the map from below like a callus on the earth.

The undulating terrain was cloaked in lush abundance, the vineyards like garlands of deep green and yellow, orchards and farms sprouting here and there, hillocks of dry golden grass crowned by beautiful sun-gilt houses, barns and silos. And overhead was the bluest sky she'd ever seen, as bright and hard polished as marble. There was something about the landscape that caught at her emotions. It was both lush and intimidating, its beauty so abundant. Far from the bustle of the city, she was a complete stranger here, like Dorothy stepping out of her whirling house into the land of Oz. Farm stands overflowing with local produce marked the long driveways into farms with whimsical names- Almost Paradise, One Bad Apple, Toad Hollow. Boxes and bushels were displayed on long, weathered tables. Between the farms, brushy tangles of berries and towering old oak trees lined the roadway.

The modern FBI was born, a little less than a hundred years ago in practical terms, in response to the great vector change of the early 20th century—when the confluence of asphalt and the automobile introduced a kind of crime that no one had ever seen before. You always had robberies, but now they were coming in a vector that was unimagined in its scope and in its speed. John Dillinger could do robberies in two states in the same day, moving at 55 miles an hour downhill. All of a sudden, county lines were very meaningful and state lines were meaningful, and this vector change thwarted law enforcement. And so what was needed was a national force to span those boundaries and respond to that threat—and the modern FBI was born.

A cop car rolled past, slowly, its tires hissing on the blacktop. County Police. Probably spent the first half of its watch ginning up municipal revenue with a radar gun out on the highway, now prowling the back streets of the towns in its jurisdiction. Showing the flag. Paying attention to the trouble spots. The cop inside turned his head and gazed at Reacher. The guy was nothing like the pawnbroker. He was all squared away. His face was lean, and his eyes were wise. He was sitting behind the wheel with a ramrod posture, and his haircut was fresh. A whitewall buzz cut. Maybe just a day old. Not more than two.

Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and

We try to live mindfully, being reverent in every aspect of our lives. We try to live like every minute is worship. Whether I’m spinning wool into yarn, or whether I’m selling cheese, the idea is to do it for God’s glory rather than my own.

In sum, until April 12, Governor Barber, apparently assumed that his friends were faring well, and took no action whatsoever. Governor Barber’s friends, however, were not faring well at all. From the beginning of the siege, the weather had been bad. A cold rain began to fall shortly after men from Buffalo first arrived at the T. A., about midnight the evening of April 10, and during that night the rain turned to snow, meaning that the invaders in the cramped quarters of their fort “suffered intensely.”34 The peril of the invaders was obvious, and knowing that the telegraph lines were probably still down, they wanted to get a message to the governor in Cheyenne “stating their predicament and asking for immediate help.”35 A young man named Dowling stepped forward and offered to try to get through the lines around the ranch to Buffalo. His offer was immediately accepted, and H. E. Teschemacher wrote a telegram to Governor Barber, which was signed by Major Wolcott. It was an especially dark evening, and Dowling had a harrowing adventure, wading through the icy creek and then briefly falling in with some of the besieging men. In the darkness nobody identified him, however, and he managed to split off from them. He was then able to “commandeer a horse” and ride to Buffalo.

School Library Journal Gr 3–6—This interactive manual is fun to read and even more fun to put into practice. From hopscotch to dodge ball, jacks to solitaire, and string games to memory games, all types of activities are included. Games to play with a ball, with cards, in a car on the go, alone, or in a group are all here to be enjoyed. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. There are also historical and factual asides for many of the entries. Some include variations on the main game or alternate names for the activity that have been used through the years. The illustrations depict children demonstrating a particular aspect of a game or just enjoying themselves playing. This is a great resource for parents and teachers, as well as for children.—Cynde Suite, Bartow County Library System, Adairsville, GA

Every building was just gone, and every soul as well. Across the Potomac River, the Pentagon shuddered violently from the blast wave and then began to partially collapse. What remained standing was utterly ablaze, as was every structure not flattened for as far as the eye could see. Howling, scorching winds soon began sweeping lethal radioactivity through the city’s northeast quadrant and into Maryland, surging through Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County, as if they were following 295 to the north and Routes 50 and 214 to the east, through Capitol Heights and Lanham and Bowie toward Crofton and Annapolis. Soon more than five thousand square miles of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia were contaminated with deadly levels of radioactivity. And the nightmare had only just begun. Moments after the first missile hit D.C., a second missile struck the CIA building at Langley directly, its superheated fireball and cataclysmic blast wave obliterating the nation’s premier intelligence headquarters in the tree-lined suburbs of northern Virginia and vaporizing every home and office building, every church and mall for mile after mile

Then, just as there was a glimmer of economic recovery, war exploded across Europe and Asia. When Pearl Harbor made it irrefutably clear that America was not a fortress, this generation was summoned to the parade ground and told to train for war. They left their ranches in Sully County, South Dakota, their jobs on the main street of Americus, Georgia, they gave up their place on the assembly lines in Detroit and in the ranks of Wall Street, they

Quattro" Only for a piece of broken glass I will be there waiting For it Always Taken to another place Where I see it happen Bear witness to a spectacular Spectacle One day we'll be up as gods on high That praise the beats of undeniable bliss And kiss the stars of harmony gone blind But all of this could be averted All of this could be unearthed We could go get gowns, spread loss And force invisible lines and flaws Take our time, and hurry up to die Save it all or try, try, try To be free, to be us To be something real to us Catered affairs, daytime nightmares Standing on chairs three nights straight County fairs, I said "who cares?" And what he wears ain't that great Freight train antics, slick camera tricks Forty licks and I'm alright Late night comics, black and white flicks White trash hicks on TV tonight, alright Living with weak CD compilations Driving downtown again Pop culture confrontations Eye rolling people spend Forgotten dates, old dinner plates Rush the gates and we'll let you in What she hates is how he waits And fifty states are wrong again Limousine got no time for you Limousine got no time for you Dollar bills soaked up red wine for you Dollar bills soaked up red, white and blue Living with weak CD compilations Driving downtown again Pop culture confrontations Eye rolling people spend Forgotten dates, old dinner plates Rush the gates and we'll let you in What she hates is how he waits And fifty states are wrong again

I’m the Gatlin County Head Librarian, same as I’ve been since I moved here, same as I always will be. I’m not a Caster. I just keep the records. I just keep the books.” Marian smoothed her hair. “I’m the Keeper, just one in a long line of Mortals entrusted with the history and the secrets of a world we can never entirely be a part of. There must always be one, and now that one is me.

My day had forty-eight hours. It helped that I had no social life. I recall a poor fellow who asked me out during this period. I agreed to meet him for dinner. As I was getting ready, the phone rang. “We’ve got a possum that’s been hit by a car,” the county animal control office said. “Can you help?” I’ve always liked possums. Like a lot of wildlife, they are completely misunderstood. Virginia opossums are the only North American marsupials. Marsupials tend to have lower body temperatures than other animals, so possums are among the least likely of any mammal to contract rabies. In fact, they are one of the most disease-free animals I’ve dealt with. That evening, answering the call as I dressed for my big date, I didn’t think twice. I thought I could pick it up and still make dinner. But when I got the injured possum home and examined it, I realized that it had probably been hit by the car two or three days earlier, and its body teemed with maggots. There wasn’t any way I could head out for a lovely evening, not with a maggot-infested marsupial under my care. I grabbed my tweezers and began flicking off the fly larvae, one by one. The possum was cooperative, but as the maggot-picking process wore on, it became evident that I was not going to able to make dinner. I called the fellow. “Here’s the situation,” I said. “I am working on a possum that was hit by a car. There is just no way I am going to be on time. What do you want to do?” There was a long hesitation on the other end of the line. “Why don’t I come over and help?” he finally asked. Great! I could always use help. A half hour later, in he came, looking smart and smelling of cologne. His face immediately turned pale as he saw what the project entailed, and he made a halfhearted attempt to help. After a while I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be finishing up with the possum or providing medical aid for my poor date, whose face had now turned a whiter shade of green. He excused himself and headed off into the night, never to be heard from again.

Within the small village of the West Coast Asian diasporic scene, from Seattle down to Orange County, gossip was the only true currency that had weight—aside from gold bars, jade with 14-karat gold trimming, and other bits of jewelry that could be easily sewn into linings in times of war.

As worldview became the dominant fault line in party politics in the early 2000s, residential political sorting accelerated even more dramatically. This has had a profound impact on the country’s electoral landscape. In particular, counties in the United States are much more politically homogeneous than they once were.

As worldview became the dominant fault line in party politics in the early 2000s, residential political sorting accelerated even more dramatically. This has had a profound impact on the country’s electoral landscape. In particular, counties in the United States are much more politically homogeneous than they once were. There are about 3,000 counties in the United States, and they vary greatly by size. Some, like Kings County (Brooklyn), are huge—population 2.6 million. Others are tiny, like Loving County, Texas, population 82. Over time, the big ones, with high population densities, have trended Democratic, while the small ones, with low population densities, have trended Republican.

The cacophony of county jail is deafening: That's what hap- pens when you jam thousands of women into concrete rooms that were intended to house a population half our size. We sleep in bunk beds in the common areas, feet away from the tables where we play cards and read all day. We urinate in overwhelmed toilets that clog and overflow. We stand in lines for showers, meals, hair- cuts, telephones, meds. At all hours of the day and night, the con- crete echoes with screams and prayers and tears and laughter and curses. There is nothing to do here but wait. I mill around the common room in my canary-yellow prison suit, watching the hands of the clock in the cage on the wall slowly ticking away the minutes of the days. I wait for mealtime, though I have no interest in eating the gray slurry that slides around tray. I wait for the library cart to come around, so I can pick out the least offensive romance novel on offer. I wait for lights-out, so that I can lie in my upper bunk in the semi-dark, listening to the snores and whispers of my fellow inmates while I wait for sleep to come. my It hardly ever does. But mostly, I wait for someone to come help me.

A creation myth lays the foundation for how you got here, where you came from, and what your role is now that you’re here.

Spoken language is a dance of talking and listening involving air, lungs, tissue, cartridge, mouths, ears, vibration, history of ancestors, and evolution of bodies and mind. It’s a balance of anatomy and phonics that express our interpretation of the way the world is.

Next time that you find yourself in a language barrier, take steps to cross over it and expand your lingual community. They will appreciate it, and you will gain a friend.

Most of us go through life in the same way that I go through Fortnite. We hope problems don’t arise, and when they do, panic overwhelms us.