Born To Be Rural

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1992. All rights reserved.

"Next time," says the author Frank Waters, "by hook or by crook, make sure you're born with a mountain in the front yard."

And an acreage out back, I would add.

Waters was born to the Colorado country and wrote several classic books (Masked Gods, The Colorado, The Book of the Hopi) about that land and its people. I come from the plateaus of eastern Montana, where your eyes rest on backlit mountains after crossing miles of open range.

It makes a difference what you're born to, of course, whether its the black sod of Kansas prairies or the slick sidewalks of Fifth Avenue. Places put things in your head like those silly tunes that you hear once and can't shake. They get in your dreams and wake you in the morning. You find yourself humming them in the shower, at breakfast, on the job. Who can say why?

Continued at... Born To Be Rural

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
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