“The levee had always been my beach, the world beyond it, my ocean. That’s as close as it got here, anyway. No waves, no dolphins, no white sand, no sea gulls. If you were lucky enough, though, every once in a while you did get to see a crane, or a beaver.”

“Here, Fridays were dedicated to the two Bs–Beach and Boats.”

“More than every once in awhile,More than most dreams,More than just my heart,More than anything,More than you know,And more than I can say,I’ve loved you moreEvery passing day”

“Dreams would always end with you, and then mornings would steal you away with a cruelty that haunted my days.”

“A freshly red-painted train caboose had, for decades now, made its home on a green, little patch of the world outside of the one-room post office. Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”

“Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”

“It was a completely new feeling for me–like someone had just released a million, tiny butterflies loose in my stomach, and they were feverishly flying up into my head and making me lose my mind.”