had at least six distinctions: he was the oldest, the poorest, and the only one living mostly on social security. He had no car and he could not read nor write. He was the only one for whom the energy shortage had already arrived in mid 1973. Still he was more like than unlike the other older men and women—he, as much as anyone, had been caught in the updraft of mobility; he owned an automatic washing machine, an electric frost-free refrigerator, a gas stove, and a black and white TV.

Mr. A has lived in his present home for 22 years. The house is of great importance to him: it represents the efforts of a lifetime. Mr. A, like Dixon Avenue where he lives, is a symbol of the past. Dixon is a minor street near the center of the city, just off West Baltimore Street. Dixon follows its own meandering course, not the usual city grid. Once, perhaps, it was a cow path. The nineteenth century row houses, with flat brick fronts and three or four white marble steps ("stoops") in front, are in the Baltimore tradition. Once housewives who lived in such houses were expected to scrub down the steps with sand each morning. The stoops on Dixon street are still scrubbed and many of the houses have small yellow signs in the windows announcing that the people who live there are involved in the "Afro Clean Block" campaign, an annual refurbishing sponsored by local black newspapers.

Dixon Avenue, once all white, is now almost all black. One elderly white woman lives in Mr. A's block. "She don't bother no one and no one don't bother her," Mr. A says. As Mr. A sits on his stoop and talks, a peddler leads a horse and wagon filled with bananas down the hill, shouting as he goes. But there are signs also of modern times—the cars are parked bumper to bumper at the curbs and though many are battered, all are less than ten years old. There are TV aerials on many roofs and one house has a conspicuous electric burglar alarm beside its front door.

Mr. A's house is dim inside in the summer heat, for the shades are drawn and the lights are out. There is a sofa, a black leather chair, a rocker, a mirror on the wall and a marble-topped coffee table with a vase of artificial flowers. Mr. A and his mother-in-law have been watching the Senate Watergate hearings on TV. The lights are out to make the room cooler, to make the TV shine more clearly, and to save money. Mr. A receives a social security check each month and still works occasionally as a waiter for a catering service. He is a very saving man. During the winter he keeps his thermostat at 50° and his oil bill is only $63 a year. He believes the way to solve the energy crisis is for everybody to use less energy.

He was born in a village called Sawmill, not far from Richmond, Virginia. Sawmill, long since engulfed in Richmond suburban developments, consisted, appropriately enough, of a sawmill, a few houses, and a blacksmith shop. Mr. A's father was the blacksmith and the family lived in a three-room house by the forge. They had no electricity, no central heating, no indoor plumbing, and no running water. The house was basic shelter: walls, plank floors, a wood stove. The wood in the stove was scraps from the sawmill. The As