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A Childish Ignorance

Book Review

Farther Off from Heaven concerns William Humphrey’s own loss of paradise. Paradise is not necessarily an idyllic place — it only seems so, by the light that our own consciousness casts over it — and Humphrey’s was an ordinary town named Clarksville, in Texas.

Graham: The Town That Said No To The Railroad

When Alamance County was laid out in 1849, Graham was supposed to occupy the exact center. Unfortunately, the center turned out to be a soggy pasture, so with eminent good sense the town site was moved to drier ground.

Cockfighting

Cockers own cocks for a fairly obvious reason. It is the poor man’s way out. Few of us could afford the stable fees, much less the price, of a racing horse.

The Death Of The Farm

Every week, hundreds of farms go out of business. Only half the farms that were viably operating in 1950 exist today. In less than thirty years, three million farms have disappeared. The story of their demise is one of America’s greatest tragedies.

A Simple Answer

I have never quite grasped the believer’s certainty. In the church of my youth there was a massive organ which shook the sanctuary with music too complicated for me to understand.

Californications

I’ve wanted to live in California since 1964 when I read a feature article on LSD in Life magazine. From Cherry Hill, New Jersey: CALIFORNIA = LSD

Waking Up . . . Or Am I Only Dreaming?

Most of what we call reality falls into a range between the trivial and the transcendent. At one end are the details of waking life. At the other end is what really counts.

Opened Flesh, Naked Spirit

It was Mara who spoke to the child first, her eyes large and full of her own young comprehension, breaking the silence with one soft word out of her hundred word vocabulary: baby.

Sara Elizabeth Safransky

Born Nov. 3, 1977, 1:45 A.M.

In the depth of my own understanding, I meet you in timeless wonder. I have no conscious memories of our “other lifetimes” together. It doesn’t matter. Your mother, reaching for you, drawing you back to her, reaches across the aeons.

A Secret Garden

Vegetable or plant dyeing is an art which belongs to the botanist and gardener as well as the spinner, weaver, and leather craftsman. A knowledge of field botany can help the dyer identify many useful dyeplants which grow in the countryside.