Opening paragraphs........................

     The land slips easterly from the High Plains and south from the Kansas line, toward the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, the softly eroded hills of this geologic red-bed country cut by pecan-lined creeks and shallow washes flowing into the Deep Fork and Canadian Rivers.  In the rolling fields, the corn and cotton struggle from the spare topsoil, a rich loam once, but now worn thing by spring rains and autumn winds howling from the north and west.
-Ed Cray,  Ramblin' Man:  The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie