"I'm writing this first draft of a sentence with a ballpoint pen given me three days ago by a geographer friend. Above his name and address is an imprinted proposition:
"While the phrase is not mine, nearly all of my writing over the last three decades seeks to test and express his hypothesis — or is it a prescript? — behind that trio of words. At the least, many of my stories could employ his motto as a subtitle, since to me it is a perpetual subtext not just for some assemblage of words but for the assemblage that is my life. I believe as I do and I am who I am because of the perpetual murmur — and an occasional huzzah — from the land.
"His ellipsis is part of the slogan, and from the emptiness of the unwritten words I hear the rest of the implied sentence as if from the Christmas carol 'Silver Bells': Are you listening? And from that question comes a second, one of import: And so?
"Americans believe in the spiritually redeeming efficacy of travel almost as if it were prayer. We are prone to try to modify our lives simply by just going, whether on a walk around the block or on a coast-to-coast trek. And why not? We're all descendants of travelers who reached these shores from the other hemisphere. Were stars not so splendidly cosmic a symbol, the blue union of our flag could well be composed of little footprints. . . .
"A journey into the land is an opening to escape limitations of inadequate learning and go beyond bonds of prejudice and get past restrictions of ignorance. Such a trip is an invitation to listen to new voices — within and without — that will speak and inform. It's an opportunity to put a face on a country, a face composed of smiles, grins, scowls, of concerns, hopes, and dreams, all of them more useful on a human visage than on a yellow lapel-button or a road map."
