Obituary for a Quiet Life, by Jeremy B. Jones (2023)

Ray Harrell came up as the youngest of eight in the Cataloochee Valley in the 1930s — outrunning mountain lions and driving cattle off the mountain and crashing borrowed jeeps — and on January 20, nine decades later, he passed from this earth without a sound. That’s how he wanted it. You won’t find a headstone. Nobody gathered for a funeral. He was here, sitting on that porch he shared with his wife of nearly 70 years, and then he wasn’t.

All around us are these lives — heads down and arms open — that ignore the siren call of flashy American individualism, of bright lights and center stage. I’m fine right here is the response from the edge of the room, and that contentment is downright subversive. How could you want only that? the world demands. There’s more to have, always more.