Sleeping at the Starlight Motel: And Other Adventures on the Way Back Home

NPR commentator and first-grade teacher White (Mama Makes Up Her Mind) here explores the many quirks of the human psyche and the richness and variety of American landscapes. A series of sketches, originals and reprints from Smithsonian and other magazines, recounts her experiences in Virginia, Vermont, Los Angeles and elsewhere but mostly focuses on people and places in and around her native Thomasville, Georgia. There the lives and personalities of local ``characters'' reflect the intersection of tradition and change in the small-town South. From the 1931 Rose Queen, who still feels that her title gives her the prerogative to pick flowers out of municipal rose beds, to the upstanding Baptist schoolteacher who drags White with her when playing hooky from her computer training course to attend dog races, to the rural folk artist whose hauntingly lovely statues sit in White's yard, White brings to life a host of often odd but always engaging personalities. Her vignettes illuminate the complexities of human relationships and the immense satisfaction that can be derived from an appreciation of nature. Author tour. (May)