Far Seems no longer they are- Yet the desires are not far- Still known Still understood Still felt Still there Close yet far- By Ray Johnson Forgotten Innocence Into it he fell. Without warning he was set into timeless motion. He fought to escape long before he slept within his mother s womb; even now he almost became the endless flow and returned through the eternal river, the cold, shadowed features of an orange, harvest moon gazed across the sleeping valley, a long light stayed lit. Six strings sang sadly with the shivering leaves. Alone he sat beneath flourescent light, reflecting off green walls; ink swerved in whirling, drifting cycles across blank pages. Street lights shone upon black asphalt strewn with broken pieces of green glass; he recalled some forgotten fragrance so sweet, supple, but submerged somewhere within an early morning s deep pray blanket of fog. The first rays of sunrise had pierced the canopy of an elder oak — the dream raged on and on ... He had sensed the essence of the life to come as he lay suspended evolving in his world of darkness. Impulses of things to come rushed through his head, pushed gently onward with each beat of his mother s heart. He drempt of light silhouetting blue velvet mountains and of noments past. Here was the only peace he would know, along his unfolding experience; his life wandered in and out of the shaded chasms warn into an aged earth. Mesmerized he stood, while rushing wUters sent sparkling prisms of light through his mind. Here his soul could be free- uninhibited, like the lone hawk ascending in the flapless glide to seemingly unattainable heights above him.He envied the great bird as it faded from sight into an endless blue. He heard the bird s lonely cry as it reverberated off unseen cliffs and fell soundless-into shadowed valleys. He contemplated death, knowing that to conquer it he had only to die. But somehow wandering restlessly through the blossoming wilderness in springtime, he felt he was home. But as he climbed the aged mountains, he knew — at least for now — he was bound to the flesh, locked inside his skull. By Alan Joyner A Photographers Portrait By Jana L. Miller Students Involved In Original Research This semester some students at Brevard College have had the opportupity to enhance their regular coursework in English with original historical research into the life of R. Henry Scadin, a photographer known in the South at the turn of the century. The project was initiated by Mark Walters of the English Depart ment, who upon discovering the photographer’s diaries and glass negatives in an attic in a cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina last summer, began a biography, coordinating the work with R. Henry Scadin’s only surviving son, Dewey. The surviving material con sists of some 1500 extremely rare glass photographic negatives and personal diaries covering about fifty years of the photographer’s life. These diaries form the back bone of the biography. According to Walters they will require “meticulous, consciencious, and painstaking work in order to be condensed and rendered into a manageable form. ’ ’ The students come in the picture mostly in the con densation of these diaries. On the average, each students involved will write essays on five diaries. Each student will also write a research paper on either photography, medicine, or transportation at the turn of the century. These three topics provide an historical context for the diaries. It is unusual for un dergraduates. in college to be involved in original research. It will be terrific plus on ap plications to four year schools. According to Walters, “These are excellent students who are willing to do extra work. They will have the benefit of ex perience as well as their name in print.” Walters has tied this research in with his English 101 and 102 courses. Instead of writing essays on general topics, these students have been given the opportunity to write on the life of R. Henry Scadin. They will be writing the same number of essays as any other student in the course. But he continued: “It requires a lot more work than the average student in the class is doing. But, then, they stand to gain a great deal more.” The students involved in the research are Richie Haymaker, Sandy Knosher, Sue Hyatt, Allen Joyner, Allison Cooperman, Kristen McIntyre, and Jana Miller. At the turn of the century, R. Henry Scadin was well known for his picturesque photographs, particularly of the mountains in western North Carolina. He billed himself as a landscape photographer, but in fact was a documentary photographer in that his pictures document the technology and the life of the times. His prints will be even more valuable 3S the time and place he captured vanishes under modernization. For example, his photograph of steam engines conquering the famous Saluda grade stands as permanent record of a vanished era. Walters seems to have a great deal of confidence in the eventual publishing of a biography — as it were, to “bring a dead photographer back to life.” He feels R. Henry Scadin deserves to be recognized as a regional documentary photographer. “Not only are Henry’s pictures technically competent, they are astoundingly beautiful,” he continued: “He will be ap preciated after I publish this biography — not nationally, but he will be recognized. People will realize a debt to him for im mortalizing an era in the Southern Appalachians.” Several reasons motivated Walters to undertake this project. According to Walters, one reason was, “Seeing history in crumbles and knowing it could be put together again. To re-weave a man’s life, not only in the context of his own times but right through the times in which we live — it’s gratifying. It gives a continuity to the history of our culture, especially in the south, par ticularly in the mountains. It’s knowing you have prolonged the reputation of a man who was prematurely forgotten.”