Small Towns And Rivers Quotes

It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn't so much wilderness around you couldn't see the town. But on the other hand there wasn't so much town you couldn't see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across. And the town was full of... Boys. And it was the afternoon of Halloween. And all the houses shut against a cool wind. And the town was full of cold sunlight. But suddenly, the day was gone. Night came out from under each tree and spread.

Now, personally, I'd have been happier driving an armored personnel carrier in through the front door. But since we're the Met, and not the police department of a small town in Missouri, we didn't have one.

High in the hazy sky, the snowfkakes looked tiny and all alike, but as they drifted past the narrow window of the sewing room, all were unique - long or round or triangular - as if they'd borrowed their shapes from the clouds they'd come from.

All rivers carry their secrets, but not every river keeps its secret forever.

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance.

Small-town kids are pebbles in a river, pushed around by the flow, forming pockets and piles, reforming when the current picks up and we find ourselves in a whole new cluster.

And somewhere out there, in the river of addicts, alcoholics, wife beaters, doormats, overeducated legalized thieves, fascist police, and bitter rivalries— someone told me it’s a good city, and I don’t know what’s more frightening

Small Town Rule #9: Someone is always in your business, but that’s okay because someone also always has your back. Seth

Small town rule #4: Childhood isn’t complete without farm animals and 4-H.

Coxley, a small college on the other side of the minor Pennsylvania river that split our town in two. His real name was Albert Vetch, and his field, I believe, was Blake; I remember he kept a framed print of the Ancient of Days affixed to the faded flocked wallpaper of his room, above a

if there is one thing a small town always has, it’s secrets.

To play catch on an evening, to smell the river, to hear the train pass. These little towns were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter just such peace.

Small Town Rule #2: Reputations are made in five seconds and stick for twenty years. Or more. “I

Now, personally, I’d have been happier driving an armored personnel carrier in through the front door. But since we’re the Met, and not the police department of a small town in Missouri, we didn’t have one.

When I come to the country I cease to view man as separate from the rest. As the river runs through many a clime, so does the stream of men babble on, winding through woods and villages and towns. It is not a true contrast that men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever. Humanity, with all its confluent streams, big and small, flows on and on, just as does the river, from its source in birth to its sea in death- two dark mysteries at either end, and between them various play and work and chattering unceasing.

Our first assigment was at a place the old maps called Telezon. A rare town not planted on a lake, it was surrounded by golden grassy plains crossed by a winding, twisting river in the centre of the largest land-mass. The grass had recently set seed in plumes of purple and white which scattered like dandelions puffs whenever the wind took a punch. And all of it was completely seething with small birds and massive dragonflies, as we discovered when we set down for the first time and ten million grass-gold birds took off in a storm of wings to give a Midas touch to the sky.

MURRAY (with a cynical laugh). Interesting? On a small town rag? A month of it, perhaps, when you're a kid and new to the game. But ten years. Think of it! With only a raise of a couple of dollars every blue moon or so, and a weekly spree on Saturday night to vary the monotony. (He laughs again.) Interesting, eh? Getting the dope on the Social of the Queen Esther Circle in the basement of the Methodist Episcopal Church, unable to sleep through a meeting of the Common Council on account of the noisy oratory caused by John Smith's application for a permit to build a house; making a note that a tugboat towed two barges loaded with coal up the river, that Mrs. Perkins spent a week-end with relatives in Hickville, that John Jones Oh help! Why go on? Ten years of it! I'm a broken man. God, how I used to pray that our Congressman would commit suicide, or the Mayor murder his wife just to be able to write a real story!

New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one...just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister? It's no surprise that some one hundred million Americans will watch the Super Bowl--that's forty million more than go to church on Christmas--suck on that, Jesus! It's also eighty-five million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in. Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don't want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they'd like it if some kids didn't have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens, "achieving the American dream" is easy for some and just a fantasy for others. That's why the NFL literally shares the wealth--TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it thirty-two ways. Because they don't want anyone to fall too far behind. That's why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call "punishing success." Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don't just mean it's incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small-market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody--but the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is $40 million; the Yankees' is $206 million. The Pirates have about as much chance as getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. So you kind of have to laugh--the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does just that. To them, the NFL is as American as hot dogs, Chevrolet, apple pie, and a second, giant helping of apple pie.

What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, intently studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit, tracing the course of obscure rivers, checking elevations, consulting the marginal notes to see what a little circle with a flag on it signifies and what's the difference between a pictogram of an airplane with a circle around it and one without, issuing small profound "hmmmms" and nodding my head gravely without having the faintest idea why.

In the small town of Horodenko in the Ukraine the Nazis ordered all Jews to report to the local church for vaccination against typhoid. Twenty-five hundred people were assembled there. They were loaded onto trucks and driven to the bank of the river Dnester. When they arrived there, there was an orchestra playing and German officers were sitting at tables laden with food and drink. Large pits had been dug out opposite the officers. Between the pits and the tables lay soldiers with machine guns. When the Jews arrived, they had to stand next to the pits and were shot at in such a way as to fall directly into them.

On this bald hill the new year hones its edge. Faceless and pale as china The round sky goes on minding its business. Your absence is inconspicuous; Nobody can tell what I lack. Gulls have threaded the river’s mud bed back To this crest of grass. Inland, they argue, Settling and stirring like blown paper Or the hands of an invalid. The wan Sun manages to strike such tin glints From the linked ponds that my eyes wince And brim; the city melts like sugar. A crocodile of small girls Knotting and stopping, ill-assorted, in blue uniforms, Opens to swallow me. I’m a stone, a stick, One child drops a carrette of pink plastic; None of them seem to notice. Their shrill, gravelly gossip’s funneled off. Now silence after silence offers itself. The wind stops my breath like a bandage. Southward, over Kentish Town, an ashen smudge Swaddles roof and tree. It could be a snowfield or a cloudbank. I suppose it’s pointless to think of you at all. Already your doll grip lets go. The tumulus, even at noon, guargs its black shadow: You know me less constant, Ghost of a leaf, ghost of a bird. I circle the writhen trees. I am too happy. These faithful dark-boughed cypresses Brood, rooted in their heaped losses. Your cry fades like the cry of a gnat. I lose sight of you on your blind journey, While the heath grass glitters and the spindling rivulets Unpool and spend themselves. My mind runs with them, Pooling in heel-prints, fumbling pebble and stem. The day empties its images Like a cup of a room. The moon’s crook whitens, Thin as the skin seaming a scar. Now, on the nursery wall, The blue night plants, the little pale blue hill In your sister’s birthday picture start to glow. The orange pompons, the Egyptian papyrus Light up. Each rabbit-eared Blue shrub behind the glass Exhales an indigo nimbus, A sort of cellophane balloon. The old dregs, the old difficulties take me to wife. Gulls stiffen to their chill vigil in the drafty half-light; I enter the lit house.

He lifted one bottle into the light. " 'GREEN DUSK FOR DREAMING BRAND PUREE NORTHERN AIR,' " he read. " 'Derived from the atmosphere of the white Arctic in the spring of 1900, and mixed with the wind from the upper Hudson Valley in the month of April, 1910, and containing particles of dust seen shining in the sunset of one day in the meadows around Grinnell, Iowa, when a cool air rose to be captured from a lake and a little creek and a natural spring.' "Now the small print," he said. He squinted. " 'Also containing molecules of vapor from menthol, lime, papaya, and watermelon and all other water-smelling, cool-savored fruits and trees like camphor and herbs like wintergreen and the breath of a rising wind from the Des Plaines River itself. Guaranteed most refreshing and cool. To be taken on summer nights when the heat passes ninety.' " He picked up the other bottle. "This one the same, save I've collected a wind from the Aran Isles and one from off Dublin Bay with salt on it and a strip of flannel fog from the coast of Iceland." He put the two bottles on the bed. "One last direction." He stood by the cot and leaned over and spoke quietly. "When you're drinking these, remember: It was bottled by a friend. The S.J. Jonas Bottling Company, Green Town, Illinois- August, 1928. A vintage year, boy... a vintage year.

Jules Verne was born on 8 February 1828 on Île Feydeau, a small artificial island on the Loire river located in the town of Nantes, in the house of his maternal grandmother Dame Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe, in No. 4 Rue de Clisson. His father, Pierre Verne, was an attorney originally from Provins. His mother was Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe, a Nantes woman of Scottish descent. She belonged to a local family of navigators and ship owners. The Verne family moved away to No. 2 Quai Jean-Bart in 1829, where Verne’s brother Paul was born the same year. Verne also had three sisters named Anne, Mathilde, and Marie, who were born in 1836, 1839, and 1842, respectively. In 1834, Verne was sent to the boarding school located at 5 Place du Bouffay in Nantes.

Here are three elements we often see in town names: If a town ends in “-by”, it was originally a farmstead or a small village where some of the Viking invaders settled. The first part of the name sometimes referred to the person who owned the farm - Grimsby was “Grim’s village”. Derby was “a village where deer were found”. The word “by” still means “town” in Danish. If a town ends in “-ing”, it tells us about the people who lived there. Reading means “The people of Reada”, in other words “Reada’s family or tribe”. We don’t know who Reada was, but his name means “red one”, so he probably had red hair. If a town ends in “-caster” or “-chester”, it was originally a Roman fort or town. The word comes from a Latin words “castra”, meaning a camp or fortification. The first part of the name is usually the name of the locality where the fort was built. So Lancaster, for example, is “the Roman fort on the River Lune”.

Half the world is made of tiny communities that have grown up around nothing more than a crossroads market, or a good clay pit, or a bend of river strong enough to turn a mill wheel. Sometimes these towns are prosperous. Some have rich soil and generous weather. Some thrive on the trade moving through them. The wealth of these places is obvious. The houses are large and well-mended. People are friendly and generous. The children are fat and happy. There are luxuries for sale: pepper and cinnamon and chocolate. There is coffee and good wine and music at the local inn. Then there are the other sort of towns. Towns where the soil is thin and tired. Towns where the mill burned down, or the clay was mined out years ago. In these places the houses are small and badly patched. The people are lean and suspicious, and wealth is measured in small, practical ways. Cords of firewood. A second pig. Five jars of blackberry preserve.

Twenty minutes later the three girls rented a small motorboat at Campbell’s Landing. The craft was old and the engine clattered and threw oil, but it was the only boat available. “Lucky we all know how to swim,” Bess said with some misgiving as they pulled away from the dock. “I have a feeling this old tub leaks and may sink before we go very far.” “We’ll be all right if George keeps busy with the bailer!” Nancy laughed, heading the craft upstream. The river was wide near town, but the upper reaches were narrow and twisted and turned at such sharp angles that fast travel was out of the question. At the wheel, Nancy kept an alert watch for shoals. Water was slowly seeping in at the bow. “It’s really pretty out here, but so wild,” Bess commented, her gaze wandering along the solid line of trees fringing the shores. “Better forget the scenery for a while,” Nancy advised, “and give George a hand with the bailing. If you don’t, our shoes will be soaked.

And so it went in Bustleburgh. The city that had set out to destroy stories had been transformed into a haven for books of all kinds. And as the population read more stories, the city itself began to change. At first the changes were small: a few sprites hovering over the dusky river, or a falling star on the horizon. But then more changes came. The Wassail lost its murky darkness and shone clear once more. The eyes of the gargoyles shifted as one passed beneath them. Birds sang in three-part chorus. Mirrors reflected strange visions. Old, neglected wells started granting wishes. More than a few house pets took to uttering prophecies. As the city changed, so did the way people saw it: Old maids became crones, and naughty children became imps; the strongest men were hailed as giants and the fairest ladies called enchantresses. The once-level roads shifted and settled into twisting alleyways full of long shadows and narrow corridors - every one of them eventually leading to a small bookshop in the heart of the town.

The Cherokees left the beautiful mountainous land of their ancestors. They were forced to live far away, in the West, which many of them felt was the home of evil spirits. Perhaps evil spirits did dwell in the new land, for the Cherokees were never the same again after they had left their mountains. Now, no man alive in Georgia remembers the Cherokee Nation. The growing capital city of the Nation has been destroyed. There are no Cherokee women and girls left to pick the berries which grow along the creeks of the Georgia mountains. The deer which graze on the mountainsides are no more hunted by Cherokee men and boys. All that is left are names. Some of the towns and rivers in North Georgia have names which sound like music and make one think of the time when Cherokees ruled this land. There is a small town named Hiawassee and another named Ellijay. Such names sound like the wind whispering in the mountain pines. Other towns are called Rising Fawn and Talking Rock and Ball Ground. There are the rivers with strange names such as Chattahoochee, Oostenaula, Coosa, Chatooga and Etowah. Nacoochee is the name of a beautiful valley and Chattanooga the name of a great city. There are Cherokee names, given to these places a thousand years before the white man came to America. Now the Cherokees have gone. Only the names remain.

At the sight of Ruth, singing and crying in the moonlight, they say Jacob Wyld crouched wordlessly and planted seeds at her feet, in the earth between the roots of the gum tree. What grew from that night, where Ruth's tears fell to the earth, was a heath of wild vanilla lilies, and an equally heady love affair between Ruth and Jacob. They met at the river whenever Ruth could get away. He brought her flower seeds and she brought him whatever meager food scraps she could sneak from the house. Soon Ruth had enough seeds to till a small, shaded corner of dirt near the house, where a nearly dead, lone wattle tree stood. The dirt was so dry it took her a month to soften it with whatever water she could carry from the river. Eventually, the wattle tree exploded into flower, a winter blaze of sweet yellow. Ruth fell to her knees at the sight. The scent floated all the way into town. Bees droned around the tree, drunk on its nectar. Beneath the wattle were circles of green shoots. Ruth sketched each one in her small notebook. As they bloomed, so different to the foxgloves and snowdrops of her mother's songs, Ruth noted down what they meant to her, adapting the Victorian language of flowers. The strange and beautiful native flowers, able to flourish in the harshest conditions, enchanted Ruth; none more so than the deep scarlet flowers with red centres the color of the darkest blood. Meaning, Ruth wrote in her notebook, have courage, take heart.

In a sense, the farmer was the looniest speculator in a nation overrun with them. He was wagering he would master this fathomlessly intricate global game, pay off his many debts, and come out with enough extra to play another round. On top of that, he was betting on the kindness of Mother Nature, always supremely risky. But the farmer had no choice if he hoped to sustain himself and a way of life, the family farm. Instead, he was drawn into a kind of social suicide. The family farm and the whole network of small-town life that it patronized were being washed away into the rivers of capital and credit that flowed toward the railroads, banks, and commodity exchanges, toward the granaries, wholesalers, and numerous other intermediaries that stood between the farmer and the world market. Disappearing into all the reservoirs of capital accumulation, the family farm increasingly remained a privileged way of life only in sentimental memory. Perversely the dynamic Lincoln had described as the pathway out of dependency—spending a few years earning wages, saving up, buying a competency, and finally hiring others—now operated in reverse. Starting out as independent farmers, families then slipped inexorably downward, first mortgaging the homestead, then failing under intense pressure to support that mortgage (they called themselves “mortgage slaves”) and falling into tenancy—or into sharecropping if in the South—and finally ending where Lincoln’s story began, as dispossessed farm and migrant laborers.

But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy there more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK WHAT TO DO FIRST 1. Find the MAP. It will be there. No Tour of Fantasyland is complete without one. It will be found in the front part of your brochure, quite near the page that says For Mom and Dad for having me and for Jeannie (or Jack or Debra or Donnie or …) for putting up with me so supportively and for my nine children for not interrupting me and for my Publisher for not discouraging me and for my Writers’ Circle for listening to me and for Barbie and Greta and Albert Einstein and Aunty May and so on. Ignore this, even if you are wondering if Albert Einstein is Albert Einstein or in fact the dog. This will be followed by a short piece of prose that says When the night of the wolf waxes strong in the morning, the wise man is wary of a false dawn. Ka’a Orto’o, Gnomic Utterances Ignore this too (or, if really puzzled, look up GNOMIC UTTERANCES in the Toughpick section). Find the Map. 2. Examine the Map. It will show most of a continent (and sometimes part of another) with a large number of BAYS, OFFSHORE ISLANDS, an INLAND SEA or so and a sprinkle of TOWNS. There will be scribbly snakes that are probably RIVERS, and names made of CAPITAL LETTERS in curved lines that are not quite upside down. By bending your neck sideways you will be able to see that they say things like “Ca’ea Purt’wydyn” and “Om Ce’falos.” These may be names of COUNTRIES, but since most of the Map is bare it is hard to tell. These empty inland parts will be sporadically peppered with little molehills, invitingly labeled “Megamort Hills,” “Death Mountains, ”Hurt Range” and such, with a whole line of molehills near the top called “Great Northern Barrier.” Above this will be various warnings of danger. The rest of the Map’s space will be sparingly devoted to little tiny feathers called “Wretched Wood” and “Forest of Doom,” except for one space that appears to be growing minute hairs. This will be tersely labeled “Marshes.” This is mostly it. No, wait. If you are lucky, the Map will carry an arrow or compass-heading somewhere in the bit labeled “Outer Ocean” and this will show you which way up to hold it. But you will look in vain for INNS, reststops, or VILLAGES, or even ROADS. No – wait another minute – on closer examination, you will find the empty interior crossed by a few bird tracks. If you peer at these you will see they are (somewhere) labeled “Old Trade Road – Disused” and “Imperial Way – Mostly Long Gone.” Some of these routes appear to lead (or have lead) to small edifices enticingly titled “Ruin,” “Tower of Sorcery,” or “Dark Citadel,” but there is no scale of miles and no way of telling how long you might take on the way to see these places. In short, the Map is useless, but you are advised to keep consulting it, because it is the only one you will get. And, be warned. If you take this Tour, you are going to have to visit every single place on this Map, whether it is marked or not. This is a Rule. 3. Find your STARTING POINT. Let us say it is the town of Gna’ash. You will find it down in one corner on the coast, as far away from anywhere as possible. 4. Having found Gna’ash, you must at once set about finding an INN, Tour COMPANIONS, a meal of STEW, a CHAMBER for the night, and then the necessary TAVERN BRAWL. (If you look all these things up in the Toughpick section, you will know what you are in for.) The following morning, you must locate the MARKET and attempt to acquire CLOTHING (which absolutely must include a CLOAK), a SADDLE ROLL, WAYBREAD, WATERBOTTLES, a DAGGER, a SWORD, a HORSE, and a MERCHANT to take you along in his CARAVAN. You must resign yourself to being cheated over most prices and you are advised to consult a local MAGICIAN about your Sword. 5. You set off. Now you are on your own. You should turn to the Toughpick section of this brochure and select your Tour on a pick-and-mix basis, remembering only that you will have to take in all of it.

Nevaeh- I believe I am never going to go around with little dreams anymore, I will not have a contained mind; I am always going to be positive if I can, and dream big. Knowing that it all can, and will be coming true if only I believe that it will. I know that I should never get stuck in a rut, for the reason that I do not know the whole plan that has been set for me. When you think like this, you can, and will break forth; this is when you will see an increase and praise. I hope that all our dreams come true, and we can all start anew. I hope that we can think, all our choices. Now I am hoping that I can let you know that, you have an angel too. I hope that everything is going to work out for you. The angels will save you and me, in times that we are on our knees. I hope the tower and its clans will forever let me be. I hope that everything will be understood so all of you can see. (About six months back) Nevaeh- The night that I was saved differently, I am only sixteen but the time is right. I could not stand living here another day or night, in ‘The Land of Many Steeples’ in the house of lost and lonely dreams, it was time for me to spread my wings and fly away from this land of misery. The day finally came and he saved me from the hell that is part of my existence. The boxy chariot with its small oblong taillights arrived near my doorstep. He greeted me with the presence of compassion. For I was looking down from the window, yes it was supposed to just be another date night. Yes, he arrived to sweep me off my feet once again and take me away. Hope was not very pleased with the onset of him being in my life… But there was nothing she could do. At last, I was content, and that is all that mattered. She would not let me go on my dates, so I waited around until it was night outside, and she was asleep! That is when I would sneak out, and get away for a while, with him. Yet I think I got pregnant on date number one, yet I am not sure. (Looking back) I remember all the dates; we would drive through the town at night, and do all kinds of wild things. Besides, look at the stars in the back of his ford bronco truck with a blanket at our spot, as the baby was asleep inside of me, this was about four months ago, or so. (The first days together as a couple.) Some of our dates started right after my school day, he would come and get me, and I would not come home until my curfew or not at all. We did not have much money, yet we always had fun just being together. Like this one time, we went kayaking in our swimsuits on the gently flowing river, and then afterward we had a picnic lunch, simple dates, but always fun. Yeah, that is right, we only had three normal dates before; I know I was indeed going to have a baby. Our craziness slowed down a lot after that fact, yet we still went out.

I sensed that this was a small part of what contributed to the passivity with regard to the Three Gorges Project in Fuling. The vast majority of the people would not be directly affected by the coming changes, and so they weren’t concerned. Despite having large sections of the city scheduled to be flooded within the next decade, it wasn’t really a community issue, because there wasn’t a community as one would generally define it. There were lots of small groups, and there was a great deal of patriotism, but like most patriotism anywhere in the world, this was spurred as much by fear and ignorance as by any true sense of a connection to the Motherland. And you could manipulate this fear and ignorance by telling people that the dam, even though it might destroy the river and the town, was of great importance to China.

At sixteen, Bridgett moved in with her dad and stepmother in Princeton, Indiana, which she described as a small, boring town. Whatever hopes she had for a better, new life faded soon after she got there. Maybe there wasn’t enough room, not just in the house but also in their life.

She was why none of his relationships had ever lasted. He hadn't left part of himself on the river, he'd left part of himself with her.

The small town of Kasane stands on the high veld plains of the northern horn of Botswana, a tourist haven shouldering the economy of the small but rich country. The town is located some one thousand kilometers north-east of the Capital City, Gaborone, with its hard blue skies and river-clear air, Kasane is a piece of paradise in this desert region; a shit-hole for the natives apparently as I was to learn, but still the place is a slice of heaven for tourists coming from outside. At the center of the small town resides an underrated true wonder of nature. A place called Plateau from which one can observe a pack of lions stalking a herd of Zebras; wildebeests crowded together like bees; a fish eagle splashing against the slow moving river and come out bearing a fighting catfish; herds of elephants and Buffaloes grazing and browsing the green mass of flora that escorts what seems like a coiling dark green phantom. The entire place below Plateau to the north is a wide array of interconnected channels, caressed on the sides by tall evergreen grass. The true wonder that is the exemplar of the Chobe District. The gravel to the height of ‘Plateau’ snakes through tall, fat baobab trees rising and falling, offering breathtaking views of the dense ridges, then dipping into creeks filled with clusters of dilapidated shacks and mobile homes with junk cars and abandoned road construction machinery scattered about. It clings to more defined creeks with shallow rapids and water clear enough to drink.

When I come to the country I cease to view man as separate from the rest. As the river runs through many a clime, so does the stream of men babble on, winding through woods and villages and towns. It is not a true contrast that men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever. Humanity, with all its confluent streams, big and small, flows on and on, just as does the river, from its source in birth to its sea of death; ⎯ two dark mysteries at either end, and between them various play and work and chatter unceasing.

about the plant going up in a small town like this?

It's barely 8:00 a.m., but my train mates waste little time in breaking out the picnic material. But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy three more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

Small towns aren’t always as sweet and innocent as people want to think they are.

Before my head hit the pillow that night, I thought of these concluding words by Desmond Tutu: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Hope is that last act of faith when we feel the least like being faithful. Hope is the connection shared between the memory of was and the freedom of giving it space to be – even if that means consciously letting go when we truly just want to hold on…hopeful that things will stay the same. We’ll know that we have reached healing when we look back upon the experience, and we thank the experience through our sincere feelings of gratitude for helping us to become more courageous of heart. That’s usually when we realize that the only limitations of life are moments when we had a small mindset…or in the words of an old Zen saying: “We don’t find the answers. We lose the questions.” Let the questions flow past the banks where the fever tree grows, as we scoop up waters of hope, and hold onto that until it trickles through our fingers and back into the source of all change, the river of hope. The same place that houses our deeper thinking and commitment toward higher living just like the strength of the fever trees, an embodiment of hope. Bright green hope…the fever tree way.

his desk, reading the paper. He looked like he had gotten eight hours of sound sleep and spent the last hour at the gym. Recruiting poster. He set his paper aside and asked if we were OK, that we looked a little under the weather. When we replied that we were fine, he said, “OK, get to work.” The bar scene was never mentioned again. Jim eventually became so depressed, he decided to volunteer for another tour in Vietnam. However, he only had months to serve, and the army refused to deploy him. Jim found a way. He got into his Olds 4-4-2 and headed toward Louisville. Between Ft. Knox and Louisville was the small town of West Point. It occupied the southeastern bank of the Ohio River and was a notorious speed trap. Local residents claimed that the majority of the municipal budget was covered by speeding fines collected from the Ft. Knox troops. Jim ran through the northbound radar trap in excess of 100 mph. After the policeman wrote him up for reckless driving, Jim turned around and ran through the southbound speed trap at 110. He was arrested immediately. When it came time for his disciplinary process, he was busted back to E-4.

small town distributed equally on the left and right banks of the mighty river, around sixty miles south of modern-day Baghdad.

Their stringers in Dennison River Bend—including two members of the town’s small police force—had been alerted and given Ellis’s description, but there had been no sightings.

the town. But, with the enemy massing beyond the river, the position ceased to be tenable after the 13th when a partially masked battery was disclosed commanding the broken bridge. General Paget’s small force had no alternative but to withdraw in haste, leaving the French free to cross. A battle under the walls of Corunna could no longer be avoided. Fortunately on the evening of the 14th the missing transports arrived, 110 sail strong, bringing the total at anchor in the harbour to 250. With them came a squadron of battleships – Ville de Paris, Victory, Barfleur, Zealous, Implacable, Elizabeth, Norge, Plantagenet, Resolution, Audacious, Endymion, Mediator – a glorious spectacle, thought an onlooker, had it been possible to forget the service for which they had come. Yet it was one which brought relief to thousands of British hearts. That night Moore, not daring to waste an hour lest a sudden change in the wind should enable the French artillery to destroy the fleet at anchor, embarked the remainder of his sick, all but eight of his guns and, since the rocky terrain did not admit of their use in battle, the whole of his cavalry. Only a thousand horses could be taken. The remainder, having foundered during the retreat – not for want of shoes but for nails and hammers – were shot on the beach. During the morning of the 15th Soult, forcing back Paget’s outposts, occupied the heights round the town, overlooking and partially enclosing the inferior British positions on the slopes of Monte Mero. Sharpshooting and cannonading continued all day, about a hundred men falling on either

There was much to be seen, though it was a small place, for the ends of the earth's iniquity had gathered in Ogalalla. We wandered through the various gambling houses, drinking moderately, meeting an occasional acquaintance from Texas, and in the course of our rounds landed in the Dew-Drop-In dance hall. Here might be seen the frailty of women in every grade and condition. From girls in their teens, launching out on a life of shame, to the adventuress who had once had youth and beauty in her favor, but was now discarded and ready for the final dose of opium and the coroner's verdict,—all were there in tinsel and paint, practicing a careless exposure of their charms. In a town which has no night, the hours pass rapidly; and before we were aware, midnight was upon us. Returning to the gambling house where we had left Priest, we found him over a hundred dollars winner, and, calling his attention to the hour, persuaded him to cash in and join us. We felt positively rich, as he counted out to each partner his share of the winnings! Straw was missing to receive his, but we knew he could be found on the morrow, and after a round of drinks, we forded the river.

After a slow few miles across the outskirts of the town, past the Scott Market and the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the ancient Sule Pagoda, Sir Hubert’s Rolls-Royce (now with a collector in Baltimore, Maryland) finally turned into Fytche Square, where a small party of British and Burmese notables were already assembled expectantly against the charcoal sky. Speeches were given, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time, and the new flag of the Union of Burma was hauled up, the faces of the young Burmese politicians beaming with happiness. The governor shook hands with the republic’s new president and prime minister while several of the Englishwomen, wives of senior officials, quietly wept.

My first and lasting impression of the Connecticut River Valley is its serene beauty, especially in the autumn months. Deep River was a near picture-perfect New England village. When I arrived there, the town was a typical working-class place, nothing like the trendy upper-income enclave it became. The town center had a cluster of shops, a movie theater open only on weekends, several white-steepled churches (none of them Catholic), the town hall, and a Victorian library. It was small, even by Ansonia standards.

went by back roads, past pines, swamps, shacks, the small towns of Lorman and Fayette, a school flying a Confederate flag, and down one road on which for some miles there were large lettered signs with intimidating Bible quotations nailed to roadside trees: “Prepare to Meet Thy God—Amos 4:12” and “He who endures to the end shall be saved—Mark 13:13” and “REPENT”—Mark 6:12.” Finally I arrived at the lovely town of Natchez. Natchez is dramatically sited on the bluffs above the wide brown Mississippi, facing the cotton fields in flatter Louisiana and the transpontine town of Vidalia. It was my first glimpse of the river on this trip. Though the Mississippi is not the busy thoroughfare it once was, it is impossible for an American to see this great, muddy, slow-moving stream and not be moved, as an Indian is by the Ganges, a Chinese by the Yangtze, an Egyptian by the Nile, an African by the Zambezi, a New Guinean by the Sepik, a Brazilian by the Amazon, an English person by the Thames, a Quebecois by the St. Lawrence, or any citizen by a stream flowing past his feet. I mention these rivers because I’ve seen them myself, and written about them, but as an alien, a romantic voyeur. A river is history made visible, the lifeblood of a nation.

You’re welcome to come back in a little while and break my heart, mija,” he said. “But right now, let’s go back to town. Let’s grab a cup of coffee and give the lovers another hour together.” “Breaking a few hearts interests me,” she said, putting her hand in his to stand. But when they were both standing, she didn’t pull her hand away. He should have let go and stooped to gather up their blanket, but he didn’t want to release her hand, small and soft but strong in his. He smiled at her. “I think the last time I had this feeling come over me when a girl held my hand, I was thirteen. You’ll be good at it, I think. Breaking hearts.” Still, she didn’t pull away, didn’t break the spell. It was he who finally let go, stooping to close up their basket, pick up the blanket. He handed her the folded blanket. “Thank you for today, Brie.” “It was a nice day,” she said, her smile genuine. “You didn’t seem to have any trouble finding the right word.” And, Mike thought, there are no words for what I’m starting to feel.... *

Could someone like me get into that? Small town like that?” “They have a midwife and everyone loves her.” Luke laughed. “You’d have some stiff competition.” “What I mean is, could someone younger than thirty-eight want that life? Or do you have to be this crusty, beat-up old grunt?” Luke got the point and his lips went back into that firm, nonnegotiable line. “Do you suppose young women ever choose that life over Ph.D.s or world travel? Think that’s ever happened?” “I think young women like Shelby might think they want that life and two years later realize they threw away their real life and they’re stuck, and everything would go to hell at that point.” “But that’s a guess,” Aiden said. “And this is a remarkable, committed, stubborn, aggressive woman who’s been up against a lot and knows what she wants.” “You tricked me,” Luke said. “You said you were going to be a little curious but now you’re up my ass.” “What are the odds you’re ever going to run into someone like her again, once she leaves Virgin River? If you let her get away?” Luke

So, you put in a no-show for the turkey,” Sean said. “What’s up with that? You’re stateside, you’re not that far away….” “I have things to do here, Sean,” he said. “And I explained to Mother—I can’t leave Art and I can’t take him on a trip.” “So I heard. And that’s your only reason?” “What else?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, as if he did know what else. “Well then, you’ll be real happy to hear this—I’m bringing Mother to Virgin River for Thanksgiving.” Luke was dead silent for a moment. “What!” Luke nearly shouted into the phone. “Why the hell would you do that?” “Because you won’t come to Phoenix. And she’d like to see this property you’re working on. And the helper. And the girl.” “You aren’t doing this to me,” Luke said in a threatening tone. “Tell me you aren’t doing this to me!” “Yeah, since you can’t make it to Mom’s, we’re coming to you. I thought that would make you sooo happy,” he added with a chuckle in his voice. “Oh God,” he said. “I don’t have room for you. There’s not a hotel in town.” “You lying sack of shit. You have room. You have two extra bedrooms and six cabins you’ve been working on for three months. But if it turns out you’re telling the truth, there’s a motel in Fortuna that has some room. As long as Mom has the good bed in the house, clean sheets and no rats, everything will be fine.” “Good. You come,” Luke said. “And then I’m going to kill you.” “What’s the matter? You don’t want Mom to meet the girl? The helper?” “I’m going to tear your limbs off before you die!” But Sean laughed. “Mom and I will be there Tuesday afternoon. Buy a big turkey, huh?” Luke was paralyzed for a moment. Silent and brooding. He had lived a pretty wild life, excepting that couple of years with Felicia, when he’d been temporarily domesticated. He’d flown helicopters in combat and played it loose with the ladies, taking whatever was consensually offered. His bachelorhood was on the adventurous side. His brothers were exactly like him; maybe like their father before them, who hadn’t married until the age of thirty-two. Not exactly ancient, but for the generation before theirs, a little mature to begin a family of five sons. They were frisky Irish males. They all had taken on a lot: dared much, had no regrets, moved fast. But one thing none of them had ever done was have a woman who was not a wife in bed with them under the same roof with their mother. “I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve been to war four times,” he said to himself, pacing in his small living room, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “This is my house and she is a guest. She can disapprove all she wants, work her rosary until she has blisters on her hands, but this is not up to her.” Okay, then she’ll tell everything, was his next thought. Every little thing about me from the time I was five, every young lady she’d had high hopes for, every indiscretion, my night in jail, my very naked fling with the high-school vice-principal’s daughter…. Everything from speeding tickets to romances. Because that’s the way the typical dysfunctional Irish family worked—they bartered in secrets. He could either behave the way his mother expected, which she considered proper and gentlemanly and he considered tight-assed and useless, or he could throw caution to the wind, do things his way, and explain all his mother’s stories to Shelby later.

Small Town Rule #10: If you couldn’t wait to leave your small town, as soon as you did, you realized it had been the best place to grow up. “Doesn’t

Right inside the front door in what must be the living room, who should be standing at a circular saw cutting planks but George Davenport. She let out a breath. Well, avoiding him wasn’t going to work. She’d tried to give him a wide berth at the wedding party on Friday night, but he’d singled her out, complimented her, made small talk and even kissed the back of her hand! There seemed to be only two options to deal with the man. Face him head-on or leave town. And there he stood, his white hair, which was not terribly thick, askew and spiking, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, covered with sawdust. His face was tan—but hadn’t he said he’d come from Seattle? Cloudy, dreary Seattle? Despite herself, she noticed his shoulders were broad, his butt was solid and his legs were long. What was a man his age doing with broad shoulders and a solid butt? She wondered what he’d look like without a shirt and was immediately appalled that she would even think that! The

Small Town Rule #3: New car? Things must be going well.

Small Town Rule #1: Share secrets

Susan Clarke, who either was a daughter from the mixed-race marriage of James F. Clarke and Mary Dulcet, or a child of the biracial couple John D. Clarke and Elizabeth Fish, entered into a permanent relationship with a white lumber merchant from Georgia, L. H. Rossignol, around 1847. In the 1850s, she acquired property in Palatka, as well as an eighty-seven-acre farm outside of town. Her neighbors included her young uncles Philip and Alex Clarke, her grandfather's sons by the slave Hannah Benet, and Amelia Anderson Clarke, her absent cousin's (or brother's) wife. In 1860, she shared a household with Rossignol, seven biracial children, and her young uncle Alex Clarke. Through her efforts, the latter acquired Palatka real estate. Thirty free blacks resided at the river port in 1860, including Amelia Anderson Clarke, Hannah Benet, and Ramona Fernández, another mixed-race woman linked to the Clarkes. Susan Clarke functioned as the matriarch of this small free black community, which had tripled in size since 1850.43 Her pedigree, ancestral ties to the Palatka locale, property ownership, and business skills helped to make her a leader.

Small Town Rule #8: Your recycling says a lot about your personal habits, so it’s important to be discreet. “Do

Small Town Rule #6: Skip Western Union; the neighbors are faster. “What

Small town rule #5: If you forget what you were doing, ask a neighbor. “No,

Small Town Rule #7: Park a few blocks away unless you want the whole town knowing your business. She’d

One of President Wingfield's first acts in May, 1607, after the construction of James Fort was underway, was the dispatch of a party to explore the river above Jamestown. Twenty-two men under Capt. Christopher Newport left on May 21 and proceeded inland to the falls of the James. in six dayes they arrived at a [Indian] Towne called Powhatan, consisting of some twelve houses, pleasantly seated on a hill; before it three fertile Iles, about it many of their cornefields, the place is very pleasant, and strong by nature ... To this place the river is navigable: but higher within a mile, by reason of the rockes and isles, there is not passage for a small boat, this they call the Falles.

When he returned to Florida in the early part of 1939, Hemingway took his boat the Pilar across the Straits of Florida to Havana, where he checked into the Hotel Ambos Mundos. Shortly thereafter, Martha joined him in Cuba and they first rented, and later in 1940, purchased their home for $12,500. Located 10 miles to the east of Havana, in the small town of San Francisco de Paula, they settled into what they called Finca Vigía, the Lookout Farm. On November 20, 1940, after a difficult divorce from Pauline, Ernest and Martha got married. Even though Cuba had become their home, they still took editorial assignments overseas, including one in China that Martha had for Collier’s magazine. Returning to Cuba just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he convinced the Cuban government to outfit his boat with armaments, with which he intended to ambush German submarines. As the war progressed, Hemingway went to London as a war correspondent, where he met Mary Welsh. His infatuation prompted him to propose to her, which of course did not sit well with Martha. Hemingway was present at the liberation of Paris and attended a party hosted by Sylvia Beach. He, incidentally, also renewed a friendship with Gertrude Stein. Becoming a famous war correspondence he covered the Battle of the Bulge, however he then spent the rest of the war on the sidelines hospitalized with pneumonia. Even so, Ernest was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. Once again, Hemingway fell in lust, this time with a 19-year-old girl, Adriana Ivancich. This so-called platonic, wink, wink, love affair was the essence of his novel Across the River and Into the Trees, which he wrote in Cuba.

WHILE HOOVER DAM was under construction, California began building the Colorado River Aqueduct and Parker Dam. Arizona’s governor, Benjamin B. Moeur, viewed the dam as an act of theft. Like many Arizonans, he worried that Southern California would suck the river dry before Arizona was in a position to divert almost any of its own share, whatever that turned out to be, so he sent a small National Guard detachment to the construction site to make sure that neither the workers nor the dam touched land on the Arizona side of the river—a challenge for a dam builder, you would think. The National Guardsmen borrowed a small ferryboat from Nellie Trent Bush, a state legislator who lived in the town of Parker, a few miles downstream. As the boat approached the site, it became entangled in a cable attached to a construction barge, and the National Guardsmen had to be rescued by their putative enemies, the people working on the dam. Moeur later sent a message to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in which he said that he had “found it necessary to issue a proclamation establishing martial law on the Arizona side of the river at that point and directing the National Guard to use such means as may be necessary to prevent an invasion of the sovereignty and territory of the State of Arizona.” By that time, his National Guard detachment had grown to include many more soldiers, as well as a number of trucks with machine guns mounted on them. Moeur also made Nellie Bush “Admiral of the Arizona Navy.” Nellie

I wanted that, with her. This quiet, small-town life. The simple pleasures. The shared friendships.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories. This is a mighty fine old world after all if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done. Coca-Cola Girl Mother baked a fortune cake pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures, a ring—you’ll be married, a button—stay a bachelor, a thimble—always a spinster, and a penny—you’re rich. Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better. So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle. You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust Hogging Catfish This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep, make you bottom feed. Like I said, boys, when you tell a whopper, say it like you believe it. Saturday Ritual My Granddad was a cobbler. We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes. Main Street Saturday Night We each were given a dime on Saturday opening a universe of possibilities. All the stores stayed open and people flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began. Dad, laughing shooting the breeze with a group of farmers, drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out who’s really working, who’s just looking busy. There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone— and joy came with but a dime. Market Day Jim Pittsford’s grocery smelled of bananas ripening and the coffee he ground by hand, wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child who came to pick up the purchase, with a large dill pickle Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls, I nibbled my pickle reward.

Attend a university if you possibly can. There is no content of knowledge that is not pertinent to the work you will want to do. But before you attend a university work at something for a while. Do anything. Get a job in a potato field; or work as a grease-monkey in an auto repair shop. But if you do work in a field do not fail to observe the look and the feel of earth and of all things that you handle — yes, even potatoes! Or, in the auto shop, the smell of oil and grease and burning rubber. Paint of course, but if you have to lay aside painting for a time, continue to draw. Listen well to all conversations and be instructed by them and take all seriousness seriously. Never look down upon anything or anyone as not worthy of notice. In college or out of college, read. And form opinions! Read Sophocles and Euripides and Dante and Proust. Read everything that you can find about art except the reviews. Read the Bible; read Hume; read Pogo. Read all kinds of poetry and know many poets and many artists. Go to and art school, or two, or three, or take art courses at night if necessary. And paint and paint and draw and draw. Know all that you can, both curricular and noncurricular — mathematics and physics and economics, logic and particularly history. Know at least two languages besides your own, but anyway, know French. Look at pictures and more pictures. Look at every kind of visual symbol, every kind of emblem; do not spurn signboards of furniture drawings of this style of art or that style of art. Do not be afraid to like paintings honestly or to dislike them honestly, but if you do dislike them retain an open mind. Do not dismiss any school of art, not the Pre-Raphaelites nor the Hudson River School nor the German Genre painters. Talk and talk and sit at cafés, and listen to everything, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to the Italian hour on the radio. Listen to preachers in small town churches and in big city churches. Listen to politicians in New England town meetings and to rabble-rousers in Alabama. Even draw them. And remember that you are trying to learn to think what you want to think, that you are trying to co-ordinate mind and hand and eye. Go to all sorts of museums and galleries and to the studios of artists. Go to Paris and Madrid and Rome and Ravenna and Padua. Stand alone in Sainte Chapelle, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. Draw and draw and paint and learn to work in many media; try lithography and aquatint and silk-screen. Know all that you can about art, and by all means have opinions. Never be afraid to become embroiled in art of life or politics; never be afraid to learn to draw or paint better than you already do; and never be afraid to undertake any kind of art at all, however exalted or however common, but do it with distinction.

One Day at a Time [Verse] Well, the rooster's crowin', the dawn is breakin' slow, I drag myself outta bed, feelin' kinda low. Coffee's brewin', but it ain't liftin' my soul, Sometimes you wonder, will you make it through the whole. [Chorus] But life's a gift, wrapped in the morning light, Each day means everything's possible, that ain't no slight. You live in the moment, let the worries unwind, Take it easy, friend, one day at a time. [Verse 2] Streets are sleepy, the town’s just wakin’ up, Carryin' burdens, it can all feel too much. But there’s a river of promise, in your own backyard, Just keep movin' forward, though the path may be hard. [Chorus] 'Cause life's a gift, wrapped in the morning light, Each day means everything's possible, that ain't no slight. You live in the moment, let the worries unwind, Take it easy, friend, one day at a time. [Bridge] Every sunset's a chance to start anew, Moonlight whispers, "There's nothing you can't do." Hold onto hope, let tomorrow find its way, Keep the faith in your heart, each and every day. [Verse 3] Neighbors wave from the porch, feeling the same fight, Old song on the radio, makes it all feel right. There's strength in this small town, like an old oak tree, Standing tall through the seasons, so can you and me.

This Is My Country; This Is Your Country September 11, 2024 at 10:07 AM Verse 1: In the heartland where the rivers run free, From the mountains to the shining sea, This is my country, this is your country, Where dreams are born and hearts are free. Chorus: Be brave enough to stand for what you believe, Even if you stand alone, don’t you ever leave. If you believe very strongly in something, Stand up and fight, let your voice ring. Verse 2: From the small towns to the city lights, We hold our ground, we fight the good fight. This is my country, this is your country, Where every soul shines so bright. Chorus: Be brave enough to stand for what you believe, Even if you stand alone, don’t you ever leave. If you believe very strongly in something, Stand up and fight, let your voice ring. Bridge: In the face of fear, in the darkest night, Hold your head high, keep your dreams in sight. This is our land, where freedom’s song is sung, Together we stand, forever strong. Chorus: Be brave enough to stand for what you believe, Even if you stand alone, don’t you ever leave. If you believe very strongly in something, Stand up and fight, let your voice ring. Outro: This is my country, this is your country, Hand in hand, we’ll always be. Let’s make America great again, Together we’ll stand, together we’ll save the USA.

Behind the shoulders of the Virgin or some bearded Father of the Church, the Italian painter joyfully depicted a miniature town or a well-cultivated landscape, so small that only from a very short distance could all the details be discerned, the walls, towers, churches, streets, the artisans at work, the ships in the river, the ladies on the balcony, the children, the barking dogs, the gaily coloured clothes drying in the sun, the ploughman and the hunter. Many nordic travellers who lagged behind the times apprehensively thought they detected a slight odour of sulphur and brimstone about art and life in Italy, the ‘odour of unsanctity’. They still detect it today. The country was in fact slowly acquiring that pagan, slightly irreverent, sacrilegious reputation which it was never to lose. The reputation did not repel visitors. In fact, the danger of losing their souls attracted as many of them as the hope of gaining everlasting salvation.

I propose that an area of no more than 300 square miles, centered roughly upon Henley-on-Thames, has made this quintessentially British town Britain's 'small town and village murder capital'.

stretches, save for the very occasional twinkling lights from a village or small town. I always imagine how hard it must have been walking on foot during the prehistoric period across this vast and desolate space. After reaching Novosibirsk we drive for five or six hours across the flat steppe of southern Siberia, through miles of wheat and sunflower fields in the summer, before the topography changes and low hills come into view. The roads become rougher and more shingly, potholes appear, and the path is occasionally washed out completely by a river. Just as the bouncing and lurching of the four-wheel drive becomes intolerable, and after some eleven hours’ travelling in total, the base camp of the Denisova team finally appears and it’s time to see old friends, settle in, unpack and relax, usually over a few shots of vodka and an amiable dinner. The first time I ate with my Russian colleagues, I had to explain to Professor Michael Shunkov, co-director of the excavations at Denisova, that I was a vegetarian. When his translator conveyed my message Michael immediately replied, in perfect Russian-English, ‘You will not survive in Siberia!’ Meat is indeed usually on the menu, but Russian hospitality means that I have never gone hungry yet.

house – it hadn't changed much – I walked out of town towards the river-bed. It was February. As I looked across the dry water-course, my eye was immediately caught by the spectacular red blooms of the coral blossom. In contrast with the dry riverbed, the island was a small green paradise. When I went up to the trees, I noticed that some squirrels were living in them and a koel, a crow pheasant, challenged me with a mellow 'who-are-you, who-are-you'.

The small town of Gunnison, Colorado, lies at the bottom of the valley carved by the Gunnison River into the Rocky Mountains. It is now crossed by the Colorado stretch of U.S. Highway 50, but in 1918, the town was mainly supplied by train and two at best mediocre roads. When the 1918–19 influenza pandemic reached Colorado as an unwelcome stowaway on a train carrying servicemen from Montana to Boulder, the town of Gunnison took decisive action. As the November 1, 1918, edition of the Gunnison News-Champion documents, a Dr. Rockefeller from the nearby town of Crested Butte was "given entire charge of both towns and county to enforce a quarantine against all the world". He instituted a strict reverse quarantine regime that almost entirely isolated Gunnison from the rest of the world. Gunnison became one of the few communities that largely escaped the ravages of the influenza pandemic, at least in the beginning – in an instructive example of the limited human patience for the social, psychological and economic disruption of quarantine, adherence eventually waned and the front page of the Gunnison News-Champion's March 14, 1919, issue reports that the influenza pandemic got to Gunnison, too. Nevertheless, Gunnison had a very lucky escape – of a population of over 6,900 (including the county), there were only a few cases and a single death.

If you will take a map of West Virginia , you will see that it is much like the map of any other State. Deep ridges of hills cut across its eastern and southwestern por tions, but aside from these there is little to distinguish it from other maps; the same winding lines indicate rivers, the same dots show where its towns are, the same network of railways connects these dots. One can easily imagine the life that goes on in these towns as being the same that goes on in small towns everywhere. He can imagine people owning their own homes, following a variety of occupations, attending to their own little affairs, and sharing in the town's common activities. He can imagine them acting like the independent citizens of other communities. But he will be mistaken . Nothing of the sort goes on there. In the coal mining fields of West Virginia, comprising parts or all of thirty -six counties, the dots on the map do not stand for towns in the ordinary sense. They do not indicate places where people lead an interrelated, many-sided, and mutually dependent existence. They stand for clusters of houses around a coal mine. They indicate points at which seams of coal have been opened , tipples erected, and coal has been brought forth as fuel. True, people live here, but they live here to work . The communities exist for the coal mines . They are the adjuncts and necessary conveniences of an industry.

In the third millennium BCE, modern archaeology has shown that there were indeed thousands of villages and dozens of small ‘states’ dotted across the river valleys of central China, rectangular walled towns of rammed earth, each with its own ruler. And in that period our narrative begins.

There are halibut as big as doors in the ocean down below the town, flapskimming on the murky ocean floor with vast skates and rays and purple crabs and black cod large as logs, and sea lions slashing through the whip-forests of bull kelp and eelgrass and sugar wrack, and seals in the rockweed and giant perennial kelp and iridescent kelp and iridescent fish and luminous shrimp too small to see with the naked eye but billions of which feed the gray whales which slide hugely slowly by like rubbery zeppelins twice a year, north in spring and south in fall. Salmonberries, thimbleberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, bearberries, snowberries, salal berries, elderberries, blackberries along the road and by the seasonal salt marshes north and south. The ground squirrels burrow along the dirt banks of the back roads, their warren of mysterious holes, the thick scatter of fine brown soil before their doorsteps, the flash of silver-gray on their back fur as they rocket into the bushes; the bucks and does and fawns in the road in the morning, their springy step as they slip away from the gardens they have been eating; the bobcat seen once, at dusk, its haunches jacked up like a teenager's hot-rodding car; the rumor of cougar in the hills; the coyotes who use the old fire road in the hills; the tiny mice and bats one sometimes finds long dead and leathery like ancient brown paper; the little frenetic testy chittering skittering cheeky testy chickaree squirrels in the spruces and pines - Douglas squirrels, they are, their very name remembering that young gentleman botanist who wandered near these hills centuries ago. The herons in marshes and sinks and creeks and streams and on the beach sometimes at dusk; and the cormorants and pelicans and sea scoters and murres (poor things so often dead young on the beach after the late-spring fledging) and jays and crows and quorking haunted ravens (moaning Poe! Poe! at dusk) especially over the wooded hills, and the goldfinches mobbing thistles in the meadowed hills, and sometimes a falcon rocketing by like a gleeful murderous dream, and osprey of all sizes all along the Mink like an osprey police lineup, and the herring gulls and Caspian terns and arctic terns, and the varied thrushes in wet corners of thickets, and the ruffed grouse in the spruce by the road, and the quail sometimes, and red-tailed hawks floating floating floating; from below they look like kites soaring brownly against the piercing blue sky, which itself is a vast creature bluer by the month as summer deepens into crispy cold fall.

Never knew what kind of trouble one could run into in these small-town bars in northern Minnesota. One braid was less of a handful to grab than a whole head of hair.

We moved to Eugene, Oregon, a small college town in the Pacific Northwest. The city sits near the source of the Willamette River, which stretches 150 miles north, from the Calapooya Mountains outside of town to its mouth on the Columbia. Carving its way between mountains, the Cascade Range to the east and the Oregon Coast Range to the west, the river defines a fertile valley where tens of thousands of years ago a series of ice age floods surged southwest from Lake Missoula, traveling over eastern Washington and bringing with their floodwaters rich soil and volcanic rock that now shore up the layers of its earth, alluvial plains fit for a vast variety of agriculture. The town itself is coated in green, hugging the banks of the river and spreading out up into the rugged hills and pine forests of central Oregon. The seasons are mild, drizzly, and gray for most of the year but give way to a lush, unspoiled summer. It rains incessantly and yet I never knew an Oregonian to carry an umbrella. Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.

Ben Franklin was renowned in his time for snatching “lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants.”49 Until he invented the lightning rod, ringing church bells specially baptized with water from the Jordan River were used to ward off lightning.50 This practice, which required humans to grasp a connection to a hunk of metal atop the highest structure in a town, killed more than 120 bell-ringers from 1750 to 1784, but was still believed to be effective.51 Many Christians did not believe humans had a right to defend themselves from divine attacks. Abbe Nollett, a man of the church, deemed it “as impious to ward off Heavens’ lightnings as for a child to ward off the chastening rod of its father.”52 Franklin retorted that “the Thunder of Heaven is no more supernatural than the Rain, Hail, or Sunshine of Heaven, against the Inconvenience of which we guard by Roofs & Shades without Scruple.”53 When organized Christianity failed to stop the spread of the useful invention, it blamed other natural phenomena, such as the 1755 Boston earthquake, on Franklin’s rods.54 John Adams condemned the religious opposition to Franklin’s rods, writing that they “met with all that opposition from the superstition, affectation of Piety, and Jealousy of new Inventions, that Inoculation to prevent the Danger of the Small Pox, and all other useful Discoveries, have met with in all ages of the World.”55 Franklin’s unholy invention was a blessing to humanity from the mind of a man, and religion fought it at every step.

hidden from the pedestrians who wandered across to buy discount Viagra; it was deeper into the town, the disorder, the ruinous buildings, the litter, the donkeys cropping grass by the roadside. Reynosa was not its plaza, but rather another hot, dense border town of hard-up Mexicans who spent their lives peering across the frontier, easily able to see—through the slats in the fence, beyond the river—better houses, brighter stores, newer cars, cleaner streets, and no donkeys. At the first stoplight at the intersection of a potholed road of Reynosa, a fat, middle-aged man in shorts and wearing clown makeup—whitened face, red bulb nose, lipsticked mouth—began to juggle three blue balls as the light turned red, and a small girl in a tattered dress, obviously his daughter, passed him a teapot which he balanced on his chin. The small girl hurried to the waiting cars, soliciting pesos. At the next light, a man in sandals and rags juggled three bananas and flexed his muscles while making lunatic faces. A woman hurried from car to car with a basket, offering tamales. Farther on was a fire-eater, a skinny man in pink pajamas gulping smoky flames from a torch.

At least once in their lives, everyone should have the opportunity to stand by the river and simply watch the water roll on by.

One of the Characteristics of Chinese Socialism is that small enterprises can engage in virtually unrestricted capitalism, which works to the advantage of the Huang family.

Tragedies don't digest well in a small town.

Judge Winmill stepped in from a door to the right of the bench and climbed to his high-back leather chair. Perhaps an inch over six feet with a slender, athletic build and youthful, boyish features, Winmill was an Idaho native. He grew up in Pingree, a small town in southeast Idaho near the Snake River, and attended college at Idaho State University in Pocatello, where he was student body president. He left the state to attend Harvard Law School but returned to Pocatello to live and practice law. A Mormon, Winmill was the father of four and active in the Democratic Party. He practiced for ten years in Pocatello, until 1987, when Governor Cecil Andrus appointed him to the bench in the Sixth Judicial District of the State of Idaho. Eight years later, in August 1995, he was a Clinton appointee to the federal bench. Breitsameter and Miller told Uhlmann that Idaho prosecutors and the defense bar universally considered Winmill extremely bright and even-handed. He was a judge who labored over his decisions, frequently taking matters under advisement rather than ruling from the bench, and he often conducted his own legal research to ensure the accuracy of his decisions.1

TRAILHEAD/ACCESS POINTS Kenosha Pass Trailhead: From Denver, drive southwest on US Hwy 285 for about 58 miles to Kenosha Pass. Kenosha Pass Campground is on the right and the Kenosha Pass Picnic Area can be seen on the left side of the highway, back in the trees. Both are fee areas. You may park alongside the highway, however, without paying the fee. The beginning of Segment 6 is on the righthand (northwest) side of the highway, just past the turn-in to the campground. The CT is visible from the highway, proceeding into the forest in a northwesterly direction. Water is available in the campground from a hand pump, after payment of the fee. Jefferson Lake Road Access: This access requires a fee payment. From Kenosha Pass, continue southwest on US Hwy 285 for 4.5 miles to the town of Jefferson. Turn right on Jefferson Lake Road. Drive 2.1 miles to an intersection. Turn right and proceed about a mile to the fee collection point. Continue 2.1 miles to where the CT crosses the road. A small parking area is 0.1 mile farther on the left. Another larger parking area is 0.6 mile down the road, near the Jefferson Lake Campground. Georgia Pass Trail Access: Using the driving instructions for the aforementioned Jefferson Lake Road access, turn right on Jefferson Lake Road, which is also known as the Michigan Creek Road. After 2.1 miles, where Jefferson Lake Road turns right, continue straight on Michigan Creek Road for 10 miles to Georgia Pass where there’s a parking area. The last 2 miles are a little rough, but most vehicles with reasonable ground clearance can make it. From the pass and parking area, find the CT to the northeast and up a very rough jeep road 0.4 mile. North Fork of the Swan River Access: From Denver, travel west on I-70 for about 75 miles to exit 203 (Frisco/Breckenridge). Proceed south on CO Hwy 9 for 7 miles to a traffic light at Tiger Road. Turn left on Tiger Road and drive 7 miles to an intersection with the drainage of the North Fork of the Swan River. Turn left on a single-lane road for 0.5 mile to a nice open area, suitable for camping, just before the road enters the forest. The CT comes out of the forest about 100 yards up a drainage on the left side of the road and proceeds north out of the valley up a closed logging road.

Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside, libraries inside. It wasn't planned, at first. Each man had a book he wanted to remember, and did. Then, over a period of twenty years or so, we met each other, traveling, and got the loose network together and set out a plan. [...] We' re nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise. Some of us live in small towns. Chapter One of Thoreau's Walden in Green River, Chapter Two in Willow Farm, Maine. Why, there's one town in Maryland, only twenty-seven people, no bomb'll ever touch that town, is the complete essays of a man named Bertrand Russell. Pick up that town, almost, and flip the pages, so many pages to a person. And when the war's over, some day, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we'll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.

ship built by English settlers in the New World. In 1607, at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine, the Plymouth Company erected a short-lived fishing settlement. A London shipwright named Digby organized some settlers to construct a small vessel with which to return them home to England, as they were homesick and disenchanted with the New England winters. The small craft was named, characteristically, the Virginia. She was evidently a two-master and weighed about thirty tons, and she transported furs, salted cod, and tobacco for twenty years between various ports along the Maine coast, Plymouth, Jamestown, and England. She is believed to have wrecked somewhere along the coast of Ireland.6 By the middle of the seventeenth century, shipbuilding was firmly established as an independent industry in New England. Maine, with its long coastline and abundant forests, eventually overtook even Massachusetts as the shipbuilding capital of North America. Its most western town, Kittery, hovered above the Piscataqua. For many years the towns of Kittery and Portsmouth, and upriver enclaves like Exeter, Newmarket, Durham, Dover, and South Berwick, rivaled Bath and Brunswick, Maine, as shipbuilding centers, with numerous shipyards, blacksmith shops, sawmills, and wharves. Portsmouth's deep harbor, proximity to upriver lumber, scarcity of fog, and seven feet of tide made it an ideal location for building large vessels. During colonial times, the master carpenters of England were so concerned about competition they eventually petitioned Parliament to discourage shipbuilding in Portsmouth.7 One of the early Piscataqua shipwrights was Robert Cutts, who used African American slaves to build fishing smacks at Crooked Lane in Kittery in the 1650s. Another was William Pepperell, who moved from the Isle of Shoals to Kittery in 1680, where he amassed a fortune in the shipbuilding, fishing, and lumber trades. John Bray built ships in front of

Few records exist to establish a definitive date as to when the first ships were built in the Piscataqua region. Fishing vessels were probably constructed as early as 1623, when the first fishermen settled in the area. Many undoubtedly boasted a skilled shipwright who taught the fishermen how to build “great shallops”as well as lesser craft. In 1631 a man named Edward Godfrie directed the fisheries at Pannaway. His operation included six large shallops, five fishing boats, and thirteen skiffs, the shallops essentially open boats that included several pairs of oars, a mast, and lug sail, and which later sported enclosed decks.5 Records do survive of the very first ship built by English settlers in the New World. In 1607, at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine, the Plymouth Company erected a short-lived fishing settlement. A London shipwright named Digby organized some settlers to construct a small vessel with which to return them home to England, as they were homesick and disenchanted with the New England winters. The small craft was named, characteristically, the Virginia. She was evidently a two-master and weighed about thirty tons, and she transported furs, salted cod, and tobacco for twenty years between various ports along the Maine coast, Plymouth, Jamestown, and England. She is believed to have wrecked somewhere along the coast of Ireland.6 By the middle of the seventeenth century, shipbuilding was firmly established as an independent industry in New England. Maine, with its long coastline and abundant forests, eventually overtook even Massachusetts as the shipbuilding capital of North America. Its most western town, Kittery, hovered above the Piscataqua. For many years the towns of Kittery and Portsmouth, and upriver enclaves like Exeter, Newmarket, Durham, Dover, and South Berwick, rivaled Bath and Brunswick, Maine, as shipbuilding centers, with numerous shipyards, blacksmith shops, sawmills, and wharves. Portsmouth's deep harbor, proximity to upriver lumber, scarcity of fog, and seven feet of tide made it an ideal location for building large vessels. During colonial times, the master carpenters of England were so concerned about competition they eventually petitioned Parliament to discourage shipbuilding in Portsmouth.7 One of the early Piscataqua shipwrights was Robert Cutts, who used African American slaves to build fishing smacks at Crooked Lane in Kittery in the 1650s. Another was William Pepperell, who moved from the Isle of Shoals to Kittery in 1680, where he amassed a fortune in the shipbuilding, fishing, and lumber trades. John Bray built ships in front of the Pepperell mansion as early as 1660, and Samuel Winkley owned a yard that lasted for three generations.8 In 1690, the first warship in America was launched from a small island in the Piscataqua River, situated halfway between Kittery and Portsmouth. The island's name was Rising Castle, and it was the launching pad for a 637-ton frigate called the Falkland. The Falkland bore fifty-four guns, and she sailed until 1768 as a regular line-of-battle ship. The selection of Piscataqua as the site of English naval ship construction may have been instigated by the Earl of Bellomont, who wrote that the harbor would grow wealthy if it supplemented its export of ship masts with “the building of great ships for H.M. Navy.”9 The earl's words underscore the fact that, prior to the American Revolution, Piscataqua's largest source of maritime revenue came from the masts and spars it supplied to Her Majesty's ships. The white oak and white pine used for these building blocks grew to heights of two hundred feet and weighed upward of twenty tons. England depended on this lumber during the Dutch Wars of the

As the crow flies Karapyshi lies midway between Donetsk, proud of its Soviet heritage, and Lviv with its Galician, Austro-Hungarian and Ukrainian nationalist one. What makes Karapyshi quintessentially Ukrainian is that historically Ukrainians were villagers, while Russians and Russian-speakers, Jews and others tended to be the townspeople. It is a generalization of course, but basically true. Karapyshi sits in the middle of Ukraine, forty minutes’ drive from the mighty Dnieper River which physically divides the country, flowing from the north and out into the Black Sea. But more than that, it also sits squarely at the center of Ukraine’s modern history and experience. Its stories echo those of thousands of other villages and small towns.

For two thousand years, maybe more, the ceremonies had been celebrated every autumn in the small town of Eleusis near Athens, becoming more famous and elaborate with the passing years. By Roman times, the mystery temple at Eleusis was a huge building half the size of a foot- ball field, and people came there from the far corners of the ancient world. All new initiates had to go through preliminary ceremonies at the river Ilissos in the month of Anthesterion, our February, in which they offered sacrifices, cleansed them- selves in the water, and listened to instruction. A year and a half later, in Boedromion (our September), they marched to Eleusis, arriving at dusk. They entered the temple, and the ceremony of initiation was enacted. No one today knows what it was, but ancient writers agreed that those who passed through it had no fear of death afterward.

Later, I sat down drunk on the corner of Carondelet and Canal Streets, listening for the rumble of the streetcar that would take me back uptown to my apartment, watching the evening sun bleed from the streets, the city shifting into night, when it truly became New Orleans: the music, the constant festival, the smell of late evening dinners pouring out, layering the beer-soaked streets, prostitutes, clubs with DJs, rowdy gay bars, dirty strip clubs, the insane out for a walk, college students vomiting in trash cans, daiquiri bars lit up like supermarkets, washing-machine-sized mixers built into the wall spinning every color of daiquiri, lone trumpet players, grown women crying, clawing at men in suits, portrait painters, spangers (spare change beggars), gutter punks with dogs, kids tap-dancing with spinning bike wheels on their heads, the golden cowboy frozen on a milk crate, his golden gun pointed at a child in the crowd, fortune-tellers, psycho preachers, mumblers, fighters, rock-faced college boys out for a date rape, club chicks wearing silver miniskirts, horse-drawn carriages, plastic cups piling against the high curbs of Bourbon Street, jazz music pressing up against rock-and-roll cover bands, murderers, scam artists, hippies selling anything, magic shows and people on unicycles, flying cockroaches the size of pocket rockets, rats without fear, men in drag, business execs wandering drunk in packs, deciding not to tell their wives, sluts sucking dick on open balconies, cops on horseback looking down blouses, cars wading across the river of drunks on Bourbon Street, the people screaming at them, pouring drinks on the hood, putting their asses to the window, whole bars of people laughing, shot girls with test tubes of neon-colored booze, bouncers dragging skinny white boys out by their necks, college girls rubbing each other’s backs after vomiting tequila, T-shirts, drinks sold in a green two-foot tube with a small souvenir grenade in the bottom, people stumbling, tripping, falling, laughing on the sidewalk in the filth, laughing too hard to stand back up, thin rivers of piss leaking out from corners, brides with dirty dresses, men in G-strings, mangy dogs, balloon animals, camcorders, twenty-four-hour 3-4-1, free admission, amateur night, black-eyed strippers, drunk bicyclers, clouds of termites like brown mist surrounding streetlamps, ventriloquists, bikers, people sitting on mailboxes, coffee with chicory, soul singers, the shoeless, the drunks, the blissful, the ignorant, the beaten, the assholes, the cheaters, the douche bags, the comedians, the holy, the broken, the affluent, the beggars, the forgotten, and the soft spring air pregnant with every scent created by such a town.

There were lots of small groups, and there was a great deal of patriotism, but like most patriotism anywhere in the world, this was spurred as much by fear and ignorance as by any true sense of a connection to the Motherland

In the hope of finding the China that I recognized, I clung at first to the countryside. It was the China of literature and ink paintings. One month, I did nothing but walk and hitch rides beside the rivers of Sichuan Province. I slept in small towns that felt half-abandoned, because the call of the city had swept away everyone who was not too old or too young to feel its pull. The village ancients liked to joke that, when they died, there would be nobody strong enough to carry their casket.

Morning came slowly in the city. In a driving rain, the sun could only slowly illuminate the dirt streets and brick sidewalks of New Orleans on the morning of January 9. The white spires of the cathedral and tall masts of the ships crowding the harbor topped the center of the city. In the dense neighborhood around the Place d’Armes, small brick houses two or three stories high clustered about grand old Spanish houses. Once a palisade and a ditch ran around the center of the city, forming a parallelogram with the river. Four redoubts stood at the corners to protect the city’s inhabitants—though all but the fort at the entrance of Faubourg Marigny had since been demolished. Since the American acquisition, the ditch had been filled up and planted with trees, leaving a ring of open space between the city and the suburbs. A boulevard called Rue de Rampart ran where the ancient town wall used to stand. Parallel to the river, roads lined with reflecting lamps passed from the center of the city out toward the plantation zone to the northeast. Here the old houses of the present-day Garden District gave way slowly and almost indistinguishably to the rich sugar plantations of the German Coast.

anyone who drove across it into Kent. Kent was a small town twenty-two years ago, without