On 2025-08-11 01:01, David Johnson wrote:

> Yes, this is one of the most remarkable things about Beam's writing,
> especially given that Beam himself made little bones about it.

Thinking further......

US soldiers returning to Pennsylvania from Europe after World War I were
exposed to Europe.

US soldiers returning to Pennsylvania from Burma, India, China, Korea,
Japan, Taiwan after World War II had been exposed to non-western
cultures that operated in quite different ways. Piper might have met
some of them.