Destiny & the Roots of It

Sigurd F. Olson (1899-1982), Listening Point (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), pp. 116-117:

There are many places where people have lived long enough to have sunk their roots deeply, who somehow have absorbed the character of the country they have chosen. I know parts of New England where the people are as native as the partridge in their upland pastures, places in the south where people have the feel of whippoorwills and mockingbirds and magnolias in their blood, and in the Source west where mountain ranges and purple vistas are a part of their lives. Wherever you go, you will find them, but most always away from the arterials and big towns, in the back country, where they are still living close to the land. Theirs is a certain contentment with things as they are, a perspective that comes only with living in one place a long time, and a loyalty to the old ways that fights change and modernization.
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