Write From What You Know Into What

A Lot Of Sad Things Have Happened To My Friends' Children, People You Knew As Babies. They've Been Killed Or Become Crazy Or All Kinds Of Tragic Things. There Are Some People Whose Children Haven't Talked To Them In Fifteen Years. There's All Kind Of Meshugaas In This World.

I Don't Have Any Degrees. I Went To Hunter College One Year And New York University Another Year. It's Just On The Basis Of My Books That I've Been Hired At Any Of The Places I've Been.

I Was Fortunate That By The Time I Was Born, There Were A Lot Of Comforts And At The Same Time I Lived In A Neighborhood Where It Was Brought To My Eyes Every Single Day That People Didn't Live Like Me. Every Day I Knew That Many Of My Friends "got Relief." That Was Important In My Thinking About The World, Thinking That Not Everybody Lived That Way.

My Mother Went To Demonstrations. I Remember Her Going To A Big Demonstration For Earl Brower And She Came Home Crying And Said The Communists Were Very Mean And Booed Their People. I Remember Feeling Sad At Her Feeling Sad.

It Wasn't Until I Lived In The Countryside That I Began To Understand The Life Of The Countryside And The People In It And Trees And Water. Just Learning About Water Is An Education For A City Person.