Lazy creeks threading corkscrew valleys. Fields blazing with goldenrod. I reached my brother's hilltop farm at night, and moonlight made glimmering lakes of the fog in valleys below. There's a gentle simplicity to life in the sleepy towns and roadside clusters. My home town, Reader, is so sleepy it's nearly comatose.
People living beside the country roads have a sense of belonging, an identity with the land.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , Robert Pirsig told of cruising in the country and envying families by back roads. The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different,'' he wrote. They're not going anywhere. They're not too busy to be courteous. The hereness and nowness of things is something they know all about.