Thanks for Listening

Thanks for listening is the sign-off R. James Garwood uses in his weekly column in the Westside Journal in Port Allen Louisiana. It's a compilation of notes "Sarge" has taken concerning politics and the majesty of human nature in small town America. "Communication is more than people 'sending and receiving information' while speaking at each other. It's making thought live, grow, prosper, then become something everybody can hopefully resolve a problem with." Garwood initiates each column with this kind of message, whether it's with the poignancy of his annual Christmas message (The Little Star) or noting the interaction of a father and son as the father slips away because of Alzheimer's disease. His award winning "Gardens of Stone" warns of the dismal flourishing of military funeral rites in small communities because of intervention in global conflicts. His writing is powerful and effective. The question or message has a point to be pondered and answers demanded. "Communication is people relating socially, interacting as equals, each adding an element to the 'sauce piquant' of community. Without communication we're another herd moving toward sterile domestication or extinction as a race." Garwood looks at people, placing elements of their personhood in the spotlight for their neighbors to admire or possibly view with a more jaundiced eye. Finally, Garwood paints a portrait of the landscape of America. Based in small town America, communication's energy spreads to cities and villages alike; "we're neighbors, whether we're talking across the alley separating New England tenements, like I did as a child, or from a rocking chair at the Cracker Barrel in the general store, it's us, being us and trying to make sense of it all." Things are finally looking up.