ELENA YATES EULO spent her early childhood in a country café called the White Cottage, run by her grandmother, Topsy Morgan, in Sligo, Kentucky. Her days were full of unique and loving people and a simple way of life that has now, in such a short time, almost vanished from the planet. She remembers the silence that could be thick and sweet as molasses, the laughter that was so free from stress, and the stories that were told to her grandmother out in the little room behind the kitchen while she sat and listened as people were healed from their miseries by Topsy's warmth and humor. In those early days, she was a silent little girl, a listener who would one day try to put words to the special existence she was privileged to live. Even then, with nothing to compare it to, she knew she lived in a place that was like none other,