"The highest tribute one writer can pay to another is to pick up something he has written and say: "I wish I had written that." And in all honesty I can say that of many of these vivid essays which make up Jimmy Townsend's Mountain Echoes--essays describing the people and places he has known in the many years he has walked, wide-eyed and wondering--and finally understanding--the hill country of North Georgia. Here is history, here is philosophy, here is a time and a place, and a people and their lifestyle, described with warmth and sympathy and lusty humor. Through these pages march a parade of characters--country sheriffs, country doctors, country editors, country lawyers, and every count and western singer you ever heard--and not all of them always sober. [...] This book brings together the best of that writing--including a marvelous collection of "Quips" covering every subject, representing moods as changeable as mountain weather, but always touched with the saving grace of wisdom laced with humor." --Foreword.