He said: "What I liked about her the most was the fact that she didn't pull any punches. She was exactly what she said she was and presented herself to be. She was kind to animals, even going so far as to feed the squires who, in my mind, seemed to do just fine in the food department. She liked small children and had a knack of getting a 6 month old to smile. She was smart. She ran her own business. And she beautiful. That's what most people noticed immediately. It's always helpful in life to be beautiful. Andy Warhol told me that and I guess it's true. But I liked her because she fed the squires. That's something you don't see every day."

Stumble It!

He said: "It was just like a movie. I couldn't believe how beautiful it all was: the sky, the clouds, the water around up. It was like what I imagine the first day was. There was a magic and a majesty that was overwhelming. When I closed my eyes, I saw all the colors that exist. When I listened, I could hear all of the voices singing together. The breeze was like a soft curtain wrapping itself around me. I knew, even then, that it would never be that good again. I had been led to the mountain, and then, sadly, led back down to Earth."

Stumble It!

She said: "He had been there for a long time, so long in fact, we almost forgot what he looked like. They put him away in a place far away from us. We couldn't go that far too many times a year. I have to work or the kids don't get school bags or shoes or any of the other hundred things school aged girls need. I wrote him letters for a time, but they gradually got less and less. He would write back, but not too often. It was always the same: "I'm doing OK, they're gonna let me out sometime; wait for me." Well, we tried to wait but that waiting was wearing us down. Dammit! Kids need a Father and a Mother both. I couldn't keep on doing everything, waiting for him to make parole. I met someone. He was good to us. I maybe didn't love him, but he was good to us and that makes up a lot. The girls got used to him being their Dad. He helped me out with the money. He did drugs, too, just like their Dad, but not so much to make the police notice him. He didn't hit me and he didn't hit the girls. We're doing OK now. I know what that "One Day At A Time" thing means. We're doing OK. It's still One day At A Time."

Stumble It!

He said: "Coming to America was like landing on the moon. What a strange place! Everywhere there was noise and everything was large: the people, the cars, the houses, everything. And fast. Everyone was running fast and driving fast. I learned that they ran because they spent so much time in their car and since the food was also large, they had to run to burn off the fat. The ones who didn't run fast soon became like a sausage. The large cars and trucks and the large people running made a lot of noise. I was used to quiet in Georgia, except when Russia made war on us. I had read a lot about America, of course. I learned also from the many movies that in American everything was possible. A person like myself could do anything, be successful at anything. And that has been the case as long as I don't stop running fast."

Stumble It!

She said: "You are, whether you know it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, you are a part of it. You didn't have to fill out any paperwork; you didn't have to practice or memorize anything, or pledge anything, or even do anything in particular. You are a part of it just by being here. Wasn't that easy? It should be easy because there's nothing hard about it at all. You just have to be here along with the rest of us. You just have to look up and see what there is to see, feel it, then smell it if you want to, then hold it, then take it into your being. Then, and this is really the only difficult part, you have to follow it were it's going to take you."

Stumble It!

He said: "This is how the world is divided up: there's The Good and The Bad, followed by The Weird and The Outrageous. Makes everything kinda simple. You can see the Weird and the Outrageous from at least 200 yards. They make a display of themselves, but they give you lots of room to leave town if you need to. The Good and the Bad are harder to figure out because they sometimes morph into each other. A Good one can flip into a Bad one in the blink of an eye. Same with the Bad. They are shape shifters and you've got to be on the ball if you don't want to get run over by one of them. When I'm on the road, I keep an eye out for the Good and the Bad, because they both are just like me and its worth the roll of the dice to let either into my truck if I see them hitching for a ride out there. You just have to hold your breath and hope you made the right choice."

Stumble It!

She said: "He wasn't a cowboy, but he was from the farm; had grown up with animals and knew how to ride a horse, but never had a horse of his own. He grew up fast and left the farm and joined the army and made a life out of that until he couldn't take it no more and started up a business in Real Estate and sold and later built houses. He smoked cigarettes from the earliest times he could remember. He went through a couple of brands, but ended up smoking the cowboy brand. I never liked the smell of smoke on a man, but he had other attributes that made up for the stink. I guess I loved him, at least at one time I did. I was with him up until the last moments in the hospital. He died while I was out, taking a break. He was under a lot of different medications so we didn't talk too much. I just held his hand mostly. I don't even really know if he knew I was there most of the time. I sure wish I could have been there to hold his hand when he passed. I miss him now. But I wish I could have been there when he died."

Stumble It!

He said: "I don't know how they did it, but the Women have figured out how not to sleep. Its an amazing thing to discover. I don't know how they did it, but they never seem to need rest. They're cooking and they're cleaning, and they're on the phone, sometimes two phones at the same time, and they're looking after the homework that the students need to have done, and they're here and they're there and they are always in motion. It tires me out just thinking about it, let alone watching it. It's more than just a cup of coffee in the morning, that much I know. I have a cup of coffee in the morning and I can't keep up with the women. They're just a blur. Where does all that energy come from? Good God, I need to sit down and take a rest. I got myself all tuckered out just thinking about it."

Stumble It!

He said: "There is a peace beyond peace and a solitude beyond solitude and a quiet so silent that it suspends time and place and this place is not difficult to find. One can find it in the blink of an eye or in the breath taken at dusk as the light fades and we all return to the sleep that is our selves."

Stumble It!

He said: "Let me entertain you, even though I can't remember why I should or who you are and how did we get here anyway? And you don't know either, do you? But the fact is that we are here now and so might as well make the best of it, don't you think? The sky is blue, the water is warm, we are seated. So, let us begin. I'll go first. There is no other here, but here and no other now but now: Kafka, in his unfinished book "Amerika", tells of a man, Karl, who is a bit of a screw up. He can't get it right. Of course, who could blame him? He was'nt from here. He was from elsewhere. But, in the story, he needs a job, and he finds one at "The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma" and it suits him. The Theatre is full of angels blowing horns and interesting people who are happy and well fed. At the end of the story, everyone gets on a train and the train rides off into the sunset and that's as far as the story goes. We don't know the end, because it was never written, or it was forgotten. So, we don't know the ending. And, you know what? That's my story exactly. That's just the way it is for me, too."

Stumble It!

He said: "It's amazing, isn't? Life goes on somehow, in spite of everything that seeks to kill it once and for all. Wars happen, and life goes on; plagues happen, and life goes on; floods happen, famine happens, all kinds of horror and, some how, we are still here, still multiplying, still getting up each morning, getting dressed, opening the window and breathing the fresh air before whatever it is that is waiting for us on the other side of the hill notices that we were are here and that we are fragile and weak and that we can be crushed, destroyed like a snow flake and utterly erased from history, and yet, we survive and tell our children how it happened that way. Somehow, in spite of everything, life goes on."

Stumble It!

She said: "I always wanted to be a performer instead of one of those artists who just hangs around the studio drinking Brandy and communing with her muses. No. I wanted to be in people's faces, to see the reaction of my work, to tell a story moment by moment, to walk on the wire of live performance. I wanted to be blood and see blood and flesh and know how I was doing with each breath I take, to sit on the head of a needle and to make it all up on the spot. That experience is like no other. It is terror and orgasmic and joy and a thrill when it works out that way. Of course, it can, and does, sometimes go the other way too, when you land flat on your face and the faces you see are blank because you've gone over them or under them or they weren't able to connect the dots by following your course. But the combination of story and gesture and music and light and magic and smoke and mirrors, for me, creates a universe that I could easily slip into and never, ever return from."

Stumble It!