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This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Before I moved to the Mississippi River, I used to worry about God. He never seemed to have much fun. Oh, no question but that he did good work. His zebra had just the right proportion of black and white stripes, his giraffe's neck and back were so angled as to make you want to slide down it like a bannister, and his elephant looked exactly the way an animal named elephant should look like.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

For the past ten years, Rock Island has suffered a plague of those silly signs now seen almost everywhere—signs with little red X's that say, "You are here."

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Like most Midwesterners, the folks who live around Rock Island are sturdy, but cautious. Seldom the first to try a new breakfast food. We like our bridges solid. Even here, however, there live occasional entrepreneurs who thrive on crossing creeks by leaping from stone to slippery stone.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

A few days ago, I stopped in at a New Age bookstore and coffee house near Rock Island to browse.