JH: Our man in “Pollen” seems proud of his Cherokee blood; what kind of ancestry would you most like to have?

JOH: I would love to be a full-blooded Cherokee maiden in distress, it is true, but only while at the same time living my life as a poor overworked tomato farmer with six kids and a starving wife in some little known rural hamlet in Texas.  That would be great, if I were those people.  As those people I would live ignored, exploited, pitied or despised, while all the while being a black tyke with tall hair in a powder blue shack in Birmingham.  Lately I’ve wished pretty heartily for my ancestry to be Chinese, but each day when I wake up I find that I am only the same tall white guy that I’ve always been.