05/25/2026
If you haven’t read A Land Remembered, you should! We have a limited supply in the gift shop at the Historic May-Stringer House Museum & Brooksville Historical Train Depot ✨
I've been revisiting my dad's novel, A Land Remembered, to refresh my memory as it moves toward a television series. The following passage at the end of chapter 30 really hit me.
"One night as Zech listened apprehensively to the lonesome cry of a wolf, realizing it was a harmless lone voice and not a pack, he wondered what the future held for old adversaries like wolves and bears and for all the creatures that depended on the land for survival. He remembered that night years ago when he had witnessed the ritual of animals peacefully sharing the life-giving water, some inborn instinct telling them they must share and conserve to survive. Perhaps animals are smarter than men, he thought, taking only what they need to live today, leaving something for tomorrow. Even the hated wolf kills only for food and only for immediate need. Maybe it is man who will eventually perish as he destroys the land and all that it offers, taking the animals down with him.
As he thought of these things and the unknown future, he realized one thing was certain: if the wilderness shrinks, pushing more and more men together, there will be explosions without end. Some will yield, but others won't, and someone will be hurt. It will never be like the animals sharing water."
He wrote this in the early 1980s, and it reads like he was describing 2026.
The animals sharing water is a quietly devastating image. No drama, no sermon — just the observation that wolves and deer drink from the same source because instinct tells them they must. And then this: "Maybe it is man who will eventually perish."
He doesn't say it with anger. He says it with sorrow. That's what makes it land so hard.
He wrote that over forty years ago. It is completely current today.
I felt a great deal of sadness reading this — not just because I miss him, but because he was right and we didn't listen.
If you haven't read A Land Remembered yet, now is the time — before the television series arrives. You really must read the book first, the way it was meant to be told — page by page, word by word.
Get your copy at ALandRemembered.com
You may also want to visit our other site at https://patricksmithonline.com/. ~Patrick D. Smith, Jr. (Rick)
