"An Arkansas man's invention ... it's a waterfall in your fireplace at the touch of a remote!"
"Are dry counties really dry? Our report shows that over 700 liquor licenses have been granted in these dry counties."

All day long, words have dropped their precious or irrelevant seeds all around me, like the just heard above words from the Little Rock CBS affiliate's news broadcast. It began early on the dark forested road leaving my parents' secluded farm when, heading South with a sick husband as passenger, I inserted Garrison Keillor's velvety voice as he read his book "Home Grown Democrat". Luscious, plump vocabulary, made me laugh, made me question and accept his liberalism, made me think about the power of words to be strung together for this or that argument, for either side. Like many, I've been an admirer of Keillor's Prairie Home Companion; it was first brought to my attention by a fellow Christian college friend, who just wanted expansiveness in both language and ideas combined with the nostalgia of recalling the individual that matters in a story. I discovered that I needed that too. Twenty some years later, still enjoying that voice, particularly that fishing with the language lure for that snag! catch! feast!

Then upon arriving in Little Rock, I dropped the ill worker off at his building, and drove down Markham Street (the most gratifying street ever because it connects all and surprises you at night with a road's edge Lutheran church stained glass window Christ reaching out to you, even you, on a false road) and found the Clinton library.

There, with techno doublewideness, words sprayed everywhere in each booth. The words of politics, Mandela, Americorps, takes a village, health care for all, deficit reduction, Chemical Weapons Convention, impeachment, acquittal, forgiveness of third world debt, AIDS, crystal glass Christmas tree, saxophone, new beginnings, Starr report, legacy.

It's quite luxurious to be in this well of words right now, in the hills, in the city, off Markham, with Bill, G, and the windowed Christ. I can hardly wait to hear what tomorrow brings!