In the dead leaves under the oak tree the drip made rustling noises, releasing smells and memories. When I was seventeen I spent a summer working on a dude ranch in the foothills of the Sierra. Toward the end of August, when the air was beginning to sharpen, I found a girl, and before the summer was over we met in the woods. Everything since has been slightly anticlimactic.

— Ross Macdonald, The Far Side of the Dollar