Identify This, part V

I.
Oh yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man. We've got á little streak of self-reliance in our amily. I thought I'd go out with my older brother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man. And I was almost decided to go, when I met á salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he'd drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers--I'll never forget--and pickup his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living.


J.
 I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light and air abot me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.