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"A Lasting, High and Happy Memory . . ." -Ben Johnson (1603) by Wilma Dykeman Certain moments endure. There are glimpses of fellow writers recorded indelibly in memory. As with most memories these are not always, not even often, the Big Events or the Important Encounters we believe we will never forget. These are unheralded quickening instants of revelation. They enter and shape consciousness with insistent force, like drops of water carving stone, and they emerge unexpectedly sooner and later, welcome as tenacious laurel healing a cut-over hillside. There is remembrance of the intensity of Thomas Wolfe's scrutiny when he 4 shakes hands with a shy young student admiring of this mountain man who, looking homeward, had engaged the praise and poison of the literary world and, just returned to Asheville, discovers that you can't go home again. Brown eyes they are, so dark they seem to reflect depth rather than light, focusing directly, intently, on the person or place or object within their gaze. Unlike the glances of later "upwardly mobile" acquaintances or the frenzied roving looks of "happy hour" types searching for the chief VIP at the party, this is a man who gives attention to each individual. Meeting that look has the impact of a physical blow. It is neither casual nor indifferent. It is inclusive, not exclusive, just as his books are-for better or worse. Probing, listening, watching , absorbing the subtle details as well as the obvious statements, Thomas Wolfe is totally aware of his immediate place and his brief, fleeting present. There is memory of answering a short summons of the doorbell and greeting James Still, with sister or friend; his tentative smile and soft-spoken goodwill measuring the fullness of welcome at an old friend's threshold. The tilt of his head and relaxation of his laugh as he and his visitor are not welcomed as much as gladly incorporated into the flow of that household s life. There is recollection of a chilly morning when Larry McMurtry enjoys scrambled eggs and biscuits and sits in front of a wood fire recounting incidents of wanderings across America. Unpretentious , funny, paradoxically downhome and sophisticated, he is a storyteller , writing or talking. And there are many remembrances of John EhIe's rich, resounding laughter transforming stuffy formality into simple human exchanges, undermining hierarchies and pecking orders and affectations with a perspective of cosmic comedy . Then there is a memory of early evening in the hills of north Georgia. James and I find overnight lodging in a rambling frame inn in the village of Blairsville. Supper. Inquiries about the young poet whose Ballad of the Bones we have recently read take us into the country along a road-under-construction. Rain is thickening the red clay into a slippery gum. We park on the road above the farmhouse and walk down toward the lighted windows. James knocks. There is an interval as rain drips from the roof onto the yard and bushes. When the door opens a tallappearing lean frame is outlined by the light behind him. To our inquiry he replies that he is Byron Herbert Reece. James tells him that we have read his poems and his face is transformed by surprise. (Obviously not many strangers wander through the Georgia hills seeking out young poets, especially on rainy nights.) It is a craggy, bony face, akin to Abraham Lincoln's in its rugged geography and underlying suggestion of sorrow. Eyes are deep-set, haunting. This remarkable countenance is rendered more in harmony with his surroundings by the faded overalls and mud-splattered work shoes he is wearing. He welcomes us. In the small living room we are greeted by his mother lying in a bed on one side of the room, his father sitting in stocking -feet beside a fire on another side of the room, and the music of Mozart filling the whole room with its elegant grace. The evening becomes a metaphor of the Appalachian experience, and a parable . James talks with Byron Herbert Reece about poetry-and with his father about growing apples, the old, flavorsome varieties, and the vagaries of weather. I talk with his mother, who is ill but...

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