When A Job Is To Be Done

The Father Spent His Time Talking And Thinking Of Religion. He Proclaimed Himself An Agnostic And Was So Absorbed In Destroying The Ideas Of God That Had Crept Into The Minds Of His Neighbors That He Never Saw God Manifesting Himself In The Little Child That, Half Forgotten, Lived Here And There On The Bounty Of Her Dead Mother's Relatives.

I Think You Know That When An American Stays Away From New York Too Long Something Happens To Him. Perhaps He Becomes A Little Provincial, A Little Dead And Afraid.

If I Can Write Everything Out Plainly, Perhaps I Will Myself Understand Better What Has Happened.

My Father, A Ruined Dandy From The South, Had Been Reduced To Keeping A Small Harness-repair Shop And, When That Failed, He Became Ostensibly A House-and-barn Painter. However, He Did Not Call Himself A House-painter. The Idea Was Not Flashy Enough For Him. He Called Himself A "sign-writer.

There Is A Time In The Life Of Every Boy When He For The First Time Takes The Backward View Of Life. Perhaps That Is The Moment When He Crosses The Line Into Manhood.