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Stories

Hitched to the University of the South at Sewannee, Tennessee. School was out and there were few people around — my last visit I stayed at Beta Phi fraternity — so checked it out again — no one around, but back door conveniently open, so I made myself at home.

Cars And Other Headaches

We took it as just so much more enemy venom when Nikita Khrushchev said the Russians didn’t have to fight the United States because we would spend ourselves out of the “race.” Enemies are always wrong; who would believe a character like that?

The Big Ship

The Great Eastern Was A Glorious Failure

According to legend, during the four years it took 2,000 workmen to assemble the ship, a riveter was accidentally sealed alive in one of its airtight compartments, jinxing the ship forever. Whatever the cause, the Great Eastern voyages ended in disaster. Its captains usually lasted only one voyage.

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.

Yanceyville

Yanceyville is a quiet town of 1,300. The tobacco barns give out just before the new high school and junior high; from the schools you can see the courthouse at the center of town.

Roxboro: Sticking To The Old-Timey

Roxboro’s a sensible town. Has been since the 1790’s, when its founders set it smack in the middle of Person County. They wanted their county seat to be easy to get to.

Spies Don’t Kill Each Other

Fletcher E. Driscoll felt the day getting warmer. He was in the back seat of a Land Rover, blindfolded. It must be noon, he thought, bouncing along what seemed to be a crude jungle road.

Journal

I have noticed that there are those who give spontaneously, unself-consciously. There are also those who have the same ability, but become distracted and brought down by the shadow of their own personalities, and a wavering results. In that instant of wavering, the gift melts. A state of listening grace evolves from instinctive setting aside of self.

Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal

Book Review

What is best in the Journal is its singular beauty and clarity of vision. Singular because not just the quotes from the Buddhist and Hindu sources but the day-to-day description of people and events are sharply defined, moving, and loveable.

Milky Way Poems

Book Review

Milky Way Poems, Mike Rigsby’s newest is an extraordinary free flight, a rough riding, plain-spoken, sky-glider of a voyage through the strangest and often most terrifying of all universes we know — the human mind itself.