Herbal knowledge, skills as a storyteller, and sharp recollections of times past have combined to make seventy-nine-year-old A.L. Tommie Bass a celebrity beyond his rural community in the southern reaches of the Appalachians in northeast Alabama. Nowadays he gives informal talks about herbs throughout his region, on the radio and on television, and is interviewed for numerous feature articles. he loves to recall his lack of formal education and to describe his innumerable activities and jobs over the years: truck farming and peddling with his father, cutting crossties, trapping and fur dealing, grave digging, plumbing houses, sharpening saws, and selling herbs to individuals and wholesale companies.