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[handwritten] AL38-B
Bob Curtis and Family, Jack Kytle,
2m. North of Talladega Springs, Ala. Editorial Dept.

BOB CURTIS: RIVER DRIFTER

Along the banks of Alabama's large rivers--
the Coosa, Warrior, Alabama, Chattahoochee, and
Tailapoosa--human driftwood floats to tangle the
State's social structure. The driftwood is often
migratory, turning to the rivers and a bare existence
when the mines, the steel plants, and the textile
mills cut down on employment. The driftwood is made
up of people who are always on the very fringe of employment; they are given work only when operations ([handwritten] ? of "speed-up" which cuts down employment)
are speeded to a point where any able-bodied man or
woman, no matter how shiftless and ignorant, may be
able to accomplish a job of sorts.

Each year, they come and go. They may stay on
the rivers only a month, or they may stay a year or
more. It would be impossible to estimate the State's
average annual river population. It is sale only to
say that hundreds are always there, fighting grim
battles with nature, and living only from one day to
the next. No one dares to look beyond tomorrow; for
the river people have become afraid to plan and hope.

Bob Curtis is afraid of life, and perhaps that is
why he has always been a failure. He is forever going
away to some job, but before two months are spent, he is
bad: in a river shanty. He has come to depend upon the

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