For a while there, I was a stringer. The expression comes from the old habit of stringing together the column inches that you had written. They'd measure it and pay you 10 cents an inch for your printed copy.

My parents encouraged me in everything I ever wanted to do.

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.

I wasn't a very discriminating reader. I read just about everything that came along.

The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning, which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.