Quote

From a piece entitled Marco Polo in Boulder, Colorado:

Though the city was bucolic and beautiful it had a sinister side. Deep woods surrounded the city and there was a large graveyard running through the middle of it. Mountain lion attacks were frequent and many perished when they fell drunkenly into the snow. The year before I arrived a child was snatched and slaughtered in her own home. The following year, in a nearby town, two schoolboys procured automatic rifles and explosives and killed 17 of their fellow students before committing suicide. I too felt very unhappy in the thin air and departed for the coast, struck mute by some psychological quirk.