Corncobs Are The Greatest Fire-making Tinder.

Poetry Is Ordinary Language Raised To The Nth Power.

Has The Painter Not Always Gone To An Art School, Or At Least To An Established Master, For Instruction? And The Composer, The Sculptor, The Architect? Then Why Not The Writer? Good Poets, Like Good Hybrid Corn, Are Both Born And Made.

Our Small Ears Never Had Such A Workout As On The Fourth Of July, Hearing Not Only Our Own Bursting Crackers But Also Those Of Our Friends, And Often The Boom Of Homemade Cannon Shot Off By Daring Boys Of 16 Years, Ready To Lose A Hand If It Blew Up.

The Corncob Was The Central Object Of My Life. My Father Was A Horse Handler, First Trotting And Pacing Horses, Then Coach Horses, Then Work Horses, Finally Saddle Horses. I Grew Up Around, On, And Under Horses, Fed Them, Shoveled Their Manure, Emptied The Mangers Of Corncobs.

You Come To Know The Aches And Vanities And Tastes And Intrigues Of An Entire Neighborhood At A Drug Store.