I recently read a book, recommended to me by okie gardener, called "Goodby to a River", by John Graves. The river in question is the Brazos, on a stretch northwest of Waco where the land's turning from CenTex farms to West Texas scrub (or vice versa, going downriver.) The author takes a canoe trip downstream while he still can, before more dams went up, as a sort of tribute to a site of his youth. The book reads partly as travel narrative, partly as history and lore, and partly as American philosophy, the good kind (Thoreau is "Saint Henry" to the author.)

The history and lore is small-scale, as history goes, but full of interesting characters. Comanches feature prominently, as do the frontiersmen who tangled with them. The author questions his own scholarship, but I'd say it's decent enough to make this required reading for anyone interested in Texas or frontier history. It was written in the late 1950s, only a couple of generations removed from its rougher days.

Graves really knew the land he was on. Its history was living to him, breathing, still fighting and feuding and moonshining and scalping and farming and alive. Its wildlife fed him, inspired him, called out to him, each in its own voice. The river had moods, changing from day to day or bend to bend, but all adding up to the river's own personality, soul. The land, though not rich, had its own character too: tough like the cedar covering the hills, stable like the limestone outcroppings, transient as the autumn grasses.

I like that. The phrase goes "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing well." True enough, and I'd add another: If somewhere's worth living, it's worth living well. I'm currently living in a town in northern Missouri where I didn't grow up (I call myself a Texas boy, and know a different stretch of the Brazos), but I'm just a county away from where my father grew up, and his father, and his. This land is worth knowing. I have an uncle who's constantly telling me of the history of this area (he's from another county or two over). Chief Big Neck had a "war" with the first white settlers. The Bee trace, a wagon route not a mile from where I now sit, would let a wagon travel from the Missouri river to Iowa without crossing a creek. If the Chariton's low, a steamboat's carcass is visible near Yarrow, just about as far north on that river as they would go.

I don't plan to be here long, but I plan to know the place while I am here. Know its people for how they are now, and how they were a generation or two ago. Recognize the songs of the birds I hear and the shape of the trees I see. Eat food raised in this county, swim in its lakes, bike its backroads, smell its air. My grandfather taught me how to pluck chickens last week. I may never need to use that skill again in my life, but I'm glad I've done it, for it's a part of where I am and who I am.

My life goals will lead me far from this place, in all probability far from any place I've known. (I'm still a young man, and haven't yet cemented my path.) I'll likely be in cities more often than not, in this country and others. I'm blessed enough to have a wife who's keen to visit these places with me. I'll be focusing on big-pictures and global issues, because that's where my intellectual and career ambitions lie, but I hope not to ignore the small-picture and local issues in doing so. Place matters.