Mother took a lot of interest in her patients, whether they could pay or not. In the days before Medicare and Medicaid there were a lot who couldnt. I remember one poor, proud man coming to our door one day to settle his account. He was a fruit picker who paid Mother with six bushels of fresh peaches. We ate those peaches for a long timeon cereal, in pies, in homemade ice cream. It made me wish more of her patients were cash poor!

They must have been excellent, sensible people, said the

Str. Suppose further, that the pilots and physicians are appointed

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� Some people in the press were coming around. Maybe the tide was turning; I even got a cordial reception on Don Imuss radio show. Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin, who cared a lot about the Irish issue, wrote, Say what you want, but do not say that he quits. Pete Hamill, the New York Daily News columnist whose books Id read and enjoyed, said, Ive come to respect Bill Clinton. Its the late rounds and hes still there. The New York Times and the Daily News endorsed me. Amazingly, so did the New York Post, which had been more relentless in its attacks than any other paper. Its editorial said: It speaks strongly to his strength of character that he has already survived a battering by the press on personal questions unprecedented in the history of American politics. . . . He has continued to campaign with remarkable tenacity. . . . In our view, he has manifested extraordinary grace under pressure.

ROMEO AND JULIET

Ciao, Joe. Did I miss anything?

`I can't sit on a chair,' sobbed the boy.

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On November 2, they gave me that chance. I won 55 percent of the vote, carrying fifty-six of the seventy-five counties, losing eighteen counties in Republican western Arkansas and one in south Arkansas. Most of the white rural counties came back, though the margins in several were close. The margin wasnt close in the largest county, Pulaski. I swept the eleven counties in northeast Arkansas where we had worked especially hard. And the black vote was staggering.

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