The country had been stirred, and shaken, all year long. The air strikes in Vietnam had escalated the war, and young men from all over America were going there to fight and to die. The civil rights movement continued to escalate, and in Alabama there had been a Freedom March that drew the eyes of the world. Cassius Clay had beaten Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title, and in Watts violence had broken out as race riots exploded in the city. Perhaps as the Stuarts gathered in the little town of Cedarville, which was the closest thing called a town to the old home place, they had come to put some of these things behind them as far as possible. But it was more than that. For all of the older members it was a hallowed time when they would come together and feel again the sense of family. Amos was gone, and Lylah was growing so feeble that it was a matter of time before she would leave an empty place at the table. Owen, also, was feeling his age, and looking it.
