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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

I just read this story by Gene Logsdon.  It was worthy of a foreward by 
Wendell Berry.  It is maybe the best Logsdon story I have read.  The ending 
is not what you might expect when you read the foreward;...bobford
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>From the foreward:

"This, then, is a story of two visions: one of disease, one of health. Or to 
put it another way, Gene Logsdon has had the generosity and the courage to 
allow a vision of Hell to call forth in himself its natural opposite. 

But can we properly dignify the story of Wally Spero by the term “vision,” or 
is it merely a reactionary fantasy? In my opinion, if you think this is 
merely a fantasy, you had better be careful. 

If you can look at the landscapes produced by strip mining without reacting 
toward some vision of the land restored, then you not only are looking at one 
of the versions of Hell; you are in it.

But can somebody really or “realistically” hope to accomplish what is 
accomplished in this story? Well, so far as I know, we don’t yet have an 
example of a whole new community sprouting from the spoil banks of a strip 
mine. 

But it is possible for one inspired man and an old bulldozer to make a 
creditable beginning, as Gene Logsdon knows, because he has seen it, as I 
have myself.

Wendell Berry  "





http://organictobe.org/index.php/2008/09/02/the-man-who-created-paradise-by-gene-logsdon/