Betty Farmer, who is eighty-one, sits on her sofa, hands in her lap, her posture impeccable.  As she rises and crosses the room, there is a grace to it, her head held high, her feet all but gliding across her living room floor. 

When Alex Flippin and Scott Sharp step on to the grass at Lake Fayetteville Park the wind attacks every bit of skin not covered by boot, jean or jacket. It’s cloudy. Forty-three degrees, not ideal weather for a day at the park, but Alex and Scott aren’t the only people out. In fact it‘s almost as busy as a summer day.

Mayor Bob Freeman stands inside the brand new Van Buren Library and smiles. “It’s like going from darkness to light,” he says, looking out across the building, its ceiling so far above you have to crane your neck to see it. 

It’s a bright winter morning and New Year Resolutions have not yet failed.  Perhaps this is the time to reflect on a considered life and to follow the path of people since the Morning Star first rose ages ago, to have a dialog with the living Earth and with all that is held in the Sacred Spaces within.

The old singer, from back when the Ryman still held the soul of country music, talked on the radio about his partner,his brother Ira, who sang with him fifty years ago, until a car crash ended any chance of the Louvin Brothers together again.

On a balmy night in 2001, a man called Tree was throwing back a few at a bikers’ rally in Oklahoma.  He remembers the way the band sounded, the hodgepodge of tents set up just yards away, the tips of the cigarettes glowing orange in darkness.

Artist Cari Humphry likes cows, the girls more than the boys.  “I’ve learned my cow anatomy,” Cari says. “Most males are pretty ugly.  Their necks are thicker and their faces aren’t as pretty.  Even their bodies don’t have the same shape.

He asked me, and I said yes. Didn’t hesitate a minute. Isn’t that the way most good things happen?

Bob Cooke's life story reads like a feel-good movie script.  His youth brings to mind the paintings of Norman Rockwell.  Imagine Bob first as a nine-year-old boy growing up in the idyllic Finger Lakes Region of 1950's New York.