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The stories! But I have to return the loaned book to the library.

The rising thunder of the approaching train brought back his nameless terror. He thought of a blues song his mother used to sing,

I flag de train an' it keep on easing by
I fold my arms; I hang my head an' cry.

Suddenly he was running without moving. He was running on the inside.

...many Americans were convinced that an effective government for the United States must sooner or later depart from republican principles. James Madison had pointed out the the convention that this fear was groundless. In a republic, he argued both in the convention and afterward in the newspapers, the majority, however composed, will always rule. The danger to individual rights will come therefore from a majority..

"While strolling along the Lickskillet street, this might be a good time to mention the distinctive "Six Flags smell." It comes from a product called Jennite, a brand of asphalt sealer that contains rubber. When people encounter Jennite in shopping-center parking lots, it can trigger the same nostalgic memories as the scents of Play-Doh or Crayola crayons. (Author's collection.)" Chapter 9, "Beyond the Six Flags"

"...We got to stand up for the rights of red-blooded, God fearin', white Americans. ..."
Cheers, whistles, and rebel yells filled the stifling meeting room, and the building vibrated with stomping feet. Gil panned his camera over the crowd and then back to Pike on the stage. Someone approached the edge of the media pen and screamed, " God damn lying news people. Tell it true now, tell it true."

Hovering

...
When you're twenty-one, you're easily annoyed.
And, let's face it, I hover.

On the prayer porch my words rise
through the screen and over the trees lining the backyard.

I pray for safety, knowing there is no safety,
only a short deferment,
then that Bible rises again
under the funeral-home tent,
a wind ripples through distant trees
and low clouds shred ...

[Like USSR & Cuba, 1962, in 2022] the West faces severe difficulties in securing the future of a vulnerable state that is Russia's immediate neighbor. Understanding between the leaderships of China, Russia, and the US is as remote as it ever was, and mutual sympathy seems unattainable. The scope for a catastrophic miscalculation is as great now as it was in 1914 Europe or in the 1962 Caribbean.

One thing about [Dave] Van Ronk, what he said was never dull or muddy. We sang the same type of songs and all of these songs were originally sung by singers who seemed to be groping for words, almost in an alien tongue. I was beginning to feel that maybe the language had something to do with causes and ideals that were tied to the circumstances and blood of what happened over a hundred years ago over secession...

"He didn't want to lose this job. It means everything to him.
This job. This place.
You.
You mean everything to him."
from Chapter Four

[BAT: I love the writing and drawing of Mimi Pond.]

From Publisher's Weekly: "More than 25 Organizations Join ALA's 'Unite Against Book Bans' Campaign
By Andrew Albanese | May 11, 2022" at
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

Cultures and cultural artifacts rise and fall as a people need to express themselves. This is good. "Hambone, Hambone where you been? 'Round the world and back again."

To continue dragging "a heavy weight, the dead, dead corpse of the Confederacy," one former Confederate leader told his son in 1886, "is stupid and daily suicidal. Let us live in the present and for the future." Our monuments were put up by people who wanted to freeze American society into place, with themselves at the top. But we, unlike the stone and metal figures on a monument, can decide that it is time to move.

Things changed in 2015, after Charleston, and 2017, after Charlottesville. But although a few monuments came down, after the protestors went home, the real change was in the tightening of protections for monuments. Now, again, Americans are questioning our monuments. Again, we might forget to keep paying attention, allowing a small number of people to make our decisions for us.

Removing a monument alone does nothing to change our future. Change happens through the conversations we have when we talk about monuments and the history they embody. A removal without a conversation hides the problem. We need to acknowledge how and why our monuments were created. We need to reveal their secrets to take away their power.

Monuments like Stone Mountain are often defended as sources of historical truth. We think monuments manifest the highest ideals of a community. [Stone Mountain and Mt. Rushmore sculptor] Borglum shows that their creators were often willing to celebrate the deathless virtue of whomever paid them best.

Debates about monuments often turn into arguments about the character of the people they honor. ... For what purpose were they made, and how do they continue to shape the lives of viewers today? ... Stone Mountain was created by people more interested in lining their own pockets than in honoring Southern history. Why should we keep celebrating the work of con artists?

How many more times must the Klan be reborn on Stone Mountain ... Pretending that Stone Mountain is mainly the product of the romantic dreams of a mourning widow does nothing but provide cover for those who want to continue to use it as what it was designed, built, and maintained to be: a source of strength and encouragement for white supremacists. If we change nothing, we will forever be waiting to achieve...

Maybe it's time to forget the Alamo, or at least the whitewashed story, and start telling the history that includes everyone. Problems arise when there's an official version of events. Texas is big enough to tell an expansive, inclusive story about the Alamo, what really happened before, how it really went down, how we wrestled over who had the right to tell the story, and why we're still fighting about it today. ...

Christmas gift. Merry Christmas!

[Dennis and family visit sites including White House, Capitol... and FBI Headquarters. Here's one panel...]
J. Edgar Hoover: "I'll see our little visitor, Clyde."
Dennis: "ULP!"
Clyde [Tolson]: "Yes, sir."

Lines on Ale

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain-
Quaintest thoughts - queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

[The late, great and esteemed Gahan Wilson illustrates Poe here as a more mellow fellow!]

PARRY lowers his hand which acts as a signal for the BUMS. The BUMS reach into their coats and each pulls out a FLASHLIGHT, which they shine at each other as THEY sing:

THREE BUMS:
I like New York in June ... How about you?
I like a Gershwin tune ... How about you?

JACK, LEATHER, and WINDBREAKER are at a loss. The BUMS aren't getting all the words, but they're definitely in sync.

The city was gleaming and splendid, but pedestrians were scarce. The skyscrapers appeared to be vacant. Henry could see through their windows to the city behind. Despite the strangeness, he was struck by the splendor, the majestic architecture amid the natural beauty that Atlanta was built on. In the scope of the world, it was a mere bijou, a small brilliant monument of civilization. Behind the cityscape, the sun...

"A friend of mine once said that when good people do good, and evil people do evil, it is not surprising. But when good people do evil, it takes religion to do that."
"I think he saw a wound in you that cannot heal."

Trucks: Duane didn't like to give simple answers so when someone asked him about the revolution, he said, "There ain't no revolution. It's all evolution." Then he paused and said, "Every time I go South, I eat a peach for peace." That stuck out to me, so I told Phil, "Call this thing Eat a Peach for Peace," which they shortened to Eat a Peach.
...a reference to T. S. Eliot... ...nothing messier than eating a peach.

All of us have the privilege to choose what we wish to visualize as the edge of reality. Either tier of crosses allows us to picture the dead as dying with their boots on. On some of the bodies all but the boots were burned off. If you have lived a life that has thrown you in contact many times with nature, you have already discovered that sometimes you can deal with nature only by allowing it to push back ... edges.

Before us the thick dark current runs. It talks up to us in a murmur become ceaseless and myriad, the yellow surface dimpled monstrously into fading swirls travelling along the surface for an instant, silent, impermanent and profoundly significant, as though just beneath the surface something huge and alive waked for a moment of lazy alertness out of and into light slumber again.

A lot of questions about the woods can't be answered by staying all the time in the woods, and it also works the other way-a lot of deep inner questions get no answer unless you go for a walk in the woods.

...Try as they [smokejumpers] may to avoid landing on rocks, many do. Landing smoothly from the sky does not come naturally to man.

As in life generally, it is most common to land in grass that thily covers very hard rocks.

This is the beauty of nonviolence. By being your best self you reach others at a deeper level than they thought they cold be reached. And so, the truth becomes the predominant force in what you are doing.