. . . and we say farewell once again to Jack Kerouac, cat man and mama's boy, as he prepares to "leave all San Francisco behind and go back home across autumn America" proving once again to his romantic predecessor Thomas Wolfe that one can go back home again where "it'll all be like it was in the beginning -- Simple golden eternity blessing all . . . My mother'll be waiting for me glad -- the corner of the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my home more homelike somehow -- On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars -- Something good will come out of all things yet -- And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word." (Big Sur, 1962, last lines, last page.)
It's a good last word: something good will come of it all: of all of the wandering, all of the searching, all of the pain, and misery, and drunken folly, and lonely nights, and broken dreams. The vanity will give way to vision. The beat will taste beatitude. The road will end and the restless will rest.
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