I was born a hundred years too late. Things is too damn civilized fer me. Been livin’ out in the open long enough ‘at I don’t fit in with civilization the way it is. I’ve become uncivilized accordin’ ta the modern way a livin’. Livin’ alone out here you get to do a lotta thinkin’. You get ideas about things. Ideas ‘at ain’t in accordance with how things is set up nowadays. My thinkin’s right by my own self. I got things in my mind the way I think they should be. An’ I live by my ideas close as I c’n, ‘cept if I’m in a town er somethin’. Then I gotta live by the rules set up by modern civilization er else run inta trouble with the law.

I’m sixty-three years old. Came out West a young man. Watched the country grow. Watched places no bigger ‘n a crossroads grow into big towns. Land’s bein’ et up by civilization. It’s getting’ so you can’t go nowhere ‘thout runnin’ into a “no tresspassin” sign. Use’ to be you could go off, camp anywhere you like, fer as long as you like. Nobody there botherin’ you, tellin’ you to move along. Plenty a room b’etween people so’s they’re not getting’ into each other’s way. Now, you got subdivisions, factories, buildin’s, all on top a one another, takin’ up the land. Some a the best jungles is now covered over with concrete in one form er another. There’s no more elbow room. Somebody’s got a piece a paper on ev’ry piece a land in the country, sayin’ how it’s theirs. Means somebody’s fool enough to try ‘n own somethin’ was here b’fore the human race was even thought of. Means you gotta be on land got a paper on it in a courthouse somewhere.

122.