The events described in this book occurred in what we in the West, by collective agreement, refer to as the past. I have a good memory for past events, but I do not accept entirely the normal constraints of time and space. The past is an ill-perceived, even controversial state, and it is not necessarily compatible with absolute truth—if there is such a thing. So if I got things mixed up in this book, if I have somehow seen, in an otherwise unremarkable landscape, a mystic forest in which bears and Indians and events long past seem to coexist with industrial parks and superhighways, then I say blame the confusion of time. I am only setting down here what I perceived to be true during the year in which I lived in that forest, successfully disguised to the world as a normal twentieth-century man.
Having said that, I want to take this opportunity to either thank or apologize to a number of people involved in the production of this book. I am grateful to the people at the Thoreau Lyceum in Concord for their help in the preparation of the Thoreau material, in particular Anne McGrath and her staff. And I would especially like to thank Thomas Blanding and Edmund A. Schofield for reading and correcting parts of the manuscript. I am also grateful to Brenda Palmucci for her laborious typing, Harry Foster for his laborious editing, and, finally, William Reiss for his constant endurance.
Certain friends, allies, and acquaintances helped with the construction of my cottage and lent certain hand tools, which I hope I have returned in reasonably good condition.
Finally, I want to apologize to those who appear in this account for any liberties, intentional or unintentional, that I may have taken with the stories of their lives. Those who still count themselves among the living will know what I mean; the others probably won’t care.