Look Around Anonymous

In Baltimore there are no stars. You look up when there’s no moon, on one of the few clear nights, and all you can see is a dull twinkle or two. I guess people around here don’t notice it much, even can’t find much time to look up. I don’t blame them, or even claim to be any different, I am no less occupied than they.

My sister and I used to drive out into the far pasture at night and lay in the truck bed in sleeping bags and stare up at them. The sky over the Texas Hill Country is a tremendous natural wonder, bigger and broader than the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains combined.

I draw a lot from my rural upbringing; my values reflect those of the small, simple towns, whose empty streets and shops I roamed as a boy. Loyalty, bravery, hard work, and tradition maintain the strength and security of a modest ranging community.

Just as two stars separated by an eternity of time and space may be to our view adjacent, the people of such a town, although they may be alone for ten miles in every direction, are closer to their neighbor than are those who crowd the bustling cities, barely sparing a glance as they pass on the sidewalk.

I love Baltimore; ideas and opinions clash and combine in a thunderstorm of intellectual progress....