I Had Been Warned About Jews By

Touch Was Important. The Evening Of The Third Of July We Would Go Around The Neighborhood And Look At The Fireworks Others Had Bought, Taking Them Out Of The Brown Paper Sack And Handling Them Cautiously As If They Were Precious Stones. There Was Envy When We Saw Sacks With More In Them Than We Had.

Every Christmas Should Begin With The Sound Of Bells, And When I Was A Child Mine Always Did. But They Were Sleigh Bells, Not Church Bells, For We Lived In A Part Of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Where There Were No Churches.

The Years Rolled Their Brutal Course Down The Hill Of Time. Still Poor, My Clothes Still Smelling Of The Horse Barn, Still Writing Those Doubtful Poems Where Too Much Emotion Clashed With Too Many Words.

The Sharpest Memory Of Our Old-fashioned Christmas Eve Is My Mother's Hand Making Sure I Was Settled In Bed.

There Must Be An Alternative Between Hollywood And New York, Between Those Two Places Psychically As Well As Geographically. The University Of Iowa Tries To Offer Such A Community, Congenial To The Young Writer, With His Uneasiness About Writing As An Honorable Career, Or With His Excess Of Ego About Calling Himself A Writer.