Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen!

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.

Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean.

But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down.

"When they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice..." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it. And, Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up — some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.

Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.