“IF DIRT CLODS were dollars, everybody in this agrarian ghetto would be flush.” It was the last thing he’d said to Zora as he drove away twenty four years ago. Even he didn’t know what it meant. Everything he’d grown up with seemed so worthless at the time. He’d missed the funeral and was surprised to find her grave overflowing with coarse, red clay projectiles. He picked up a hefty chunk, intending to toss it as far as he could. But, it would not fly. Instead, he grasped the hardened soil tightly until it crumbled to dust in his hand.

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