I am writing to tell you how much pleasure the Pathways affords me. I'm an 82-year-old "peasant mystic" who doesn't know the German and Latin language so can't by any stretch of the imagination call himself a philosopher. My "revelations" consists of some 650, give or take a few, thoughts that I call my "thought mosaic" and two more specific experiences that as Eric Voegelin so truthfully taught me cannot claim to be new knowledge to be delivered to the world.

The picture is of myself and my wife Dorothy, both 82 years old and sixty years of marriage behind us. One benefit of this is that as we near the end of the trail on this mysterious shaft we can still take care of each other as she makes quilt tops and I study with the help of the computer and the internet.

Metairie is a suburb of New Orleans and all together it is often referred to as the Isle of Orleans as it lies between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain and is surrounded by other bayous and other waterways.

I was born and raised up on the Red River which runs through northwest Louisiana to the Mississippi in an area that before the Civil War was known as Coushatta Chute, site of the Bosley Plantation, my forebears. Part of my philosophical quest is exploring the heritage of that area with its cousins and fellow citizens.

Thank all of you for sharing your thoughts. I listen carefully.

E. Frank Masingill