Mark nodded even though she couldn't see. He'd suddenly lost any desire to talk, and his plans for a perfect day washed away with the stream. The memories. They never let him go, not even for a half hour. They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.

Peace of mind arrives the moment you come to peace with the contents of your mind.

Sure all life's highways at some point must end, so I plan to ride it in style and plummet in a swan dive when the pavement runs out...And hopefully leave behind artistically that which may make other roads an even better ride...

Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/ a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/ i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/ in somebody else's cup...

Letting go looks different for everyone, I think. Sometimes it's as simple as waking up one day and deciding not to let your past rule you. Other times it's a process; slow moving and painful, like trudging through a forest of thorny vines in hopes that you'll find freedom on the other side.

As one 1935 study put it, boys and girls who were 15 or 16 in 1929 when the Depression began are no longer children; they are grown-ups _ adults who had never, since they left school, had anything productive to do; adults in the embittered by years of suffering and hardship. The President's Advisory Commission on Education was to warn of a whole lost generation of young people.