It is no accident that many of my reflections on the arts and culture of Springfield were about people—Vachel Lindsay and Susan Lawrence Dana, to name two—that the old town once regarded as half loony. The city still produces such people, of course, but they seldom show up here. (For example, I see that in more than a thousand commentaries I somehow failed to note the career of noted Springfield sculptor Michael Dunbar.)

 

Nor was I ever generous enough to the people who worked very hard to enrich life in what is otherwise a provincial, get-ahead kind of place that remains venal and unimaginative. My belated apologies to them, and to my readers.