Jayber Crow was, is, the best book I've ever read. The only book in my life that made me scream OUT LOUD in bed at it's conclusion, and the only book I finished and then flipped immediately back to page one.
Each summer, Mike and I choose a book to read aloud at night when we are camping in Glacier Park. I can't wait for that. I started reading it to him last night on the deck and we read until the sun went down.
It is the simple story of a gentleman barber named Jayber Crow in the small town of Port William, Kentucky. At least it seems simple on the surface, but the story of someone's life is always more interesting when you pull at the seams, isn't it? It would be impossible for me to unwind it all here. Jayber says,
"...for a long time then I seemed to live by a slender thread of faith, spun out from within me. From this single thread I spun strands that joined me to the good things of the world. And then I spun more threads that joined all the strands together, making a life. When it was complete, or nearly so, it was shapely and beautiful in the light of day. It endured through the nights, but sometimes it only barely did. It would be tattered and set awry by things that fell or blew or fled or flew. Many of the strands would be broken. Those I would have to spin and weave again in the morning. But of course the story of my life is not finished yet. I will not live to tell the end of it...(p.330)"
(The photo is mine - taken on a visit to the ghost town of Bannock, Montana last winter.)
Thanks for sharing the photo you took in Bannock, Heidi! My great-grandfather spent two years mining gold in Bannock around 1910. Are you willing to share any more of the photos you took there?
Posted by: Pete Williams | May 17, 2008 at 11:15 AM