Yet I preferred the earthy description of the dozer operator who drove the first tractor into the forest, because I could understand the human experience more readily than the experiences of the collective forest to which I had ascribed human attributes. The driver's name was Billy Joe Wheeler. Billy Joe was struggling to explain the human dilemma he faced as the first man to strike out at the helpless forest. He began to weep. Good people work growin' tobacca and makin' cigarettes, an' good people work in them whiskey distilleries an' in bars an' all.
Good people work makin' A bombs.
You oughta try raisin' a family once. If I didn't drive that tractor somebody else woulda. It's easy ta have them high ideas when ya got money. He wiped his nose in his red bandanna. Some of 'em is over four hundred year old ya, know.