The wayfarers were gone, but they left a thank-you note attached to the blanket. Signed by Mary, Joe and newborn son Christian, it read: "Goodwill to all".
That Christmas Eve, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird leaned on his porch rail, looking across Mississippi Delta cotton fields in which he had toiled since he was a boy. In moon-blanched stillness, the fields were taking a well-earned winter rest. The old black man had seen good cotton years and bad, but few like this one. Rainfall came, plenteous and timely; sunny summer days were long, hot and humid. Cotton’s green blood, chlorophyll, raced in photosynthetic delirium from sun-absorbing leaves to roots, stalks, and fruit, loading plants with bulging bolls that produced one of the biggest yields ever.
