I've been reading a book called THE LAST HARVEST by Witold Rybcznski. It's the story of the building of a new subdivision in rural Pennsylvania. Simply stated, Rybcznski follows the development of 90 acres of cornfield from idea to completion, but it's more. In 200 pages THE LAST HARVEST tells the story of real estate development in America. What could be more relevant for our region?

My mother-in-law Bette Wakefield died last week after several years of decline. She taught me how to seize life and not let go. During the diminished vitality of her last years I often thought of Dylan Thomas's famous line of poetry, "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

I'm hoping this will be the spring we'll see river otters in the creek behind our house. I've had reports of people seeing them at the mill dam a half mile downstream, and just last week someone wrote to say they'd seen three otters fishing in Four-Mile Branch, a large tributary of Lawson's Fork not far away. There's something about a possible river otter sighting that would fulfill my fauna longings for the season.

Last week we spent a few days in Manhattan. While I was there I had flashes of previous trips to the City. There have been few enough so that all six or seven journeys north are memorable.

In many ways a trip to New York City is about as different as life can get from living in the suburban upcountry of South Carolina. A trip there always feels like true travel to a foreign place. Strange things always happen. The energy comes in waves. There's the density-a million and a half people living in 22 square miles-but it's not the density that makes the air feel so different and strange in New York. It's the intense life of the island, the way the folkways and culture of the mythic place have developed their own rhythms and surprises. It's the power and the madness and the excitement.