These articles appeared in the Watauga Democrat in the years 1990 through 1993. This newspaper, published twice weekly at that time, was the newspaper of record in the small town of Boone, North Carolina. The publisher and owner was Rachel Rivers Coffee. Most of my readers were of an older generation. After reading the front page and the obituaries they would generously peruse the wild imaginings of the bald Jew who had settled humbly in their midst. Their calls and letters encouraged me to continue in my mad but consuming endeavor to grow Christmas trees in the mountains of western North...