Aware of the situation's strangeness, the note's author included the line "This is not a Halloween prank".
(The title refers to an obscure group of Georgia militiamen that, according to the author, included several of his ancestors).
Those who witness their plight -- the author included -- end up seized by the same wish to flee that grips those whose destiny is to remain.
It eventually decided to webcast the day's events from the agency's mission control in Darmstadt to a select group of diehard online viewers, this author included.
The author included plant lists and samples of color combinations, making it possible for anyone with access to a seed catalog or garden center to recreate at least a small piece of a Gertrude Jekyll garden.
"This is the first time we've had the house of an author included on the African American Heritage Trail, and it's fitting that it's Dorothy West's," said the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who rents a house every summer in Oak Bluffs.
