Finally

I had long avoided reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a difficult feat. At the time, the prevalent edition was this one with a bird being annoyed by poky color triangles. I suppose I thought the book was about murderous Graphic Designers. As a child, I couldn't even look at the cover without it upsetting me. I also shunned it because my sister (possibly kindly) warned me if a dog died in anything, a movie, a book or a television show and one, named Tim Johnson, does indeed die- so I deliberately never watched the Gregory Peck film, and may eventually have confused it with Member of the Wedding.
Of course, I loved the novel.

From the bk.....
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.