James Whitcomb Riley was a Hoosier poet and storyteller whose writing had an effect on me as I was growing up in the dry sandy hill country of North Louisiana.  I first read Riley's poems in a book that I found on my Uncle Hugh's bookshelf. My uncle, J. Hugh Wimberly, probably had more influence on me than anyone other than my father. He was a most unique man. Small, maybe five foot seven, with coal black hair and blue eyes like my mother's.  He joined the Marines just as World War II started and was in the Pacific Theatre as a postmaster, flying in a plane called a "flying coffin," delivering mail.  He was funny, clever, and a thinker, and probably one of the only men in the military who recommended himself for promotion twice and got it. He never learned to swim but at war's end was a Master Sergeant (three stripes up and three down with a diamond in the center). He became partners with my daddy in Sledge's, your friendly store in Castor, Louisiana, one of the six stores in that little village.  He passed away last year in his early 80’s.

I still remember the poems in the book I found on Uncle Hugh’s shelf.  I remember particularly the poem, "When the Frost is on the Punkin."  I had the first few lines memorized and fifty-three years later still do.  I lived the life described by Riley and was probably one of the luckiest kids alive.  I distinctly remember walking barefoot down the railroad track toward the creek, crossing over a trestle and chunking rocks into the water below, thinking of something I had just read by Riley. He said he wrote about his life and how he recorded his observations, or something to that effect.  I clearly remember thinking that my life was dull and without color and was surely nothing worth remembering and surely nothing worth recording. How little did I know that those halcyon days would be short lived and to escape that dullness I would thrust myself into a life of roller coaster conflict that has continued until this day, that I would eventually desire to be back barefoot walking those hot rails, avoiding those sharp rocks underfoot on the railroad track. But those days have passed, and as I grew up the meaning of Thomas Wolfe's book, "You Can't Go Home Again," became increasingly clear.  For a long time I didn't want to go home again, for there was nothing there in that little town but a time-space continuum of sameness that had not changed, except to contract in on itself as people grew older and died to be replaced by strangers. Strangers who, when I return, don't know me or of my father and family. It is a desolate feeling to go back there and feel old.

It's 8:00 a.m. in Baton Rouge, overcast, quiet with only the slightest tremor of leaves in the topmost branches with hints of autumn in the changing light. There's a difference in the light as the seasons change guard from summer to fall. The light is mellower, or thinner in a way, not quite as demanding, as if it is bedtime. It is bedtime for the trees that are pulling the cover up over their heads and dropping their leaves to blanket their roots, soon to sleep. I particularly like this season for it is a bit like twilight. I seem to join in on the communal agreement that it is time to rest now after a hard summer's work at growing, making blossoms and then seeds, deepening roots. While there seems to be a certain chaos in nature, I think there is a seeming order and even a kind of overall knowing and infinite patience among the living things I see around me.  They live and die, then resurge again in life without worry or concern. They are life without complexity, simple and harmonious.  I guess my perception comes from my boyhood so close to these living things in the country, being a part of it, having it as part of me, moving among it as if I was at one with it as I sat on the bank fishing, or walked in the fields, or climbed trees and smoked cornsilks, or swam naked in that ice cold creek.  So Riley was right.  Life does give something worthwhile to remember and write about.