By the mid 1970s, after nine years of teaching in Seguin, the possibility of finding employment back home appeared nonexistent. I have regretted leaving Seguin at times, but the trees I had planted by then required far more than weekend care, and the miles I drove each week could almost have taken me halfway to the moon.

More importantly, Erna Dietel had drafted me years earlier into civic life. She swept me into the Heritage Federation and its Wild Game Dinners and Damenfests, and then into the ...