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Along the Oregon Trail: First & Last Words
“An Austrian tour guide once observed that saying farewell to a group of American tourists she’d known for only two weeks is a lot like grief, for it’s unlikely she and this random…
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Wearing the Condom of Financial Responsibility: Thrift
“Shortly after my first book was published, I received a small royalty check and promptly squandered it on some books that were available at the local libraries. Said my frugal wife, ‘Skip, if…
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Even & Odd: Numbers
“As a former reading tutor at the local elementary school, I taught children as varied as the boy who read WWII as World War Eleven and the girl who correctly multiplied 17 x…
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More Jesus than Paul: Anecdotes
“I credit my mentor James Dickey with convincing me that the best teaching is anecdotal. He told a rapt class that when Deliverance was being filmed, the body that Dickey as the sheriff…
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Hurdling the Hazards at the Ramadan Inn: ESL Students
“Driving out of the zoo’s parking lot, a student from Israel exclaimed, ‘Oh, look! There’s a peace pigeon.’ It was a mourning dove, of course, and then I had to explain why it…
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Super Heavyweights: Whales
“As half of my brain struggled not to hate the highly social, carnivorous orca, I was reminded that some Northwest Native Americans regard them as the reincarnated souls of humans. This may be…
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Cutting the Butterfly from Its Cocoon: Failure
“Evolution’s unceasing determination to improve life from monocytes to mammals depends on clearing the deadwood, but the deadwood has its uses. Pico Iyer, a superb travel writer, has described the lotus blossom, the…
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Permanently Smitten: Love
“Over the years, she and I have evolved a bilingual departure ceremony: as I kiss her goodbye, I say, ‘Juice’ (an anglicized variation on the German Tschüs or ‘bye’), and she says, ‘Luba du,’ or, ‘Lova…
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The Professor Is (All) In
“Over the 40 years I taught English and Humanities at Clemson University, students arriving at my door in Strode Tower were greeted by a bewildering array of passive-aggressive cartoons, photographs, and quotations. These…
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Caring Enough: Selflessness
“Though I expect Ingrid will deny it, I married a mensch. I had suspected it all along from the empathetic way she acted around animals and children, but my suspicions were confirmed when we…