Now what my great, great friend and mentor said was--
his name was Charles Olson, and in a sense,
he gave me permission when I was a young kid
to be anything that I could be.
What he said was, "I take SPACE to be
the central fact to man born in America,
from Folsom cave to now.
I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America,
from Folsom cave to now."
That means that the spaces of the American West
are working on us all, all the time.
Every time we raise our head to look at the far mountain
ranges, we're seeing that space that Charles realized
was what was creating other human beings, the central fact
to man born in America, from Folsom cave to now.
Folsom cave was discovered in Northern New Mexico.
It was a time legend about 30,000 years ago,
which was about the time that it was
thought that human beings came to America over the land
bridge.