So, my lad, you’ve got yourself born. It happens to all of us, and say what they will, those Deep-South Born-Again Americans, it is a-once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. One birth, one life, one death. You are fortunate; you have a good, a very good pair of parents, you have a strong body, and a questing mind. I had the same, a firm base from which to start out. I had a good spell of breastfeeding, and later, the richness of stew. Three penn’orth, sometimes six penn’orth, of beef and mutton pieces, with potatoes and onions, carrots, celery, whatever vegetables were available, the final touch a measure of rice or pearl barley for thickening. Poverty food, by some standards, but it was strong and strengthening. Father was strong, even after the timber mill accident that left him with a right leg that swung half paralyzed and a totally paralyzed right arm. Mother was strong; in hindsight I marvel at her strength, her fortitude. Radicals, both of them, rebels, who were not to be tricked by the forked tongues of politicians or parsons. Readers, and writers, and they handed on the heritage. Butter was scarce on our table; there was always plenty of beef dripping. Sauce and jam and soft drink were non-existent; we lived and throve on stew and bread, fruit, and milk. There were books, in place of butter; we came to know quite a deal about the many worlds beyond our own horizons. ‘You’ll write, sooner or later,’ my mother said. I remember still the lift of my heart when I first finished Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm. I’ve read it, in whole or in part, a dozen times since, and it does not pall. You shall have a copy from me, in time; I hope you’ll read it, hope you’ll get something of what I got from it.