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Star-Gazing
Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—4/11/11—If my latent Hinduism comes through for me, the next time around I’d like to be an astronomer. Ever since my grandmother Myrtie Watson…
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The Scarlet Letter Quartet
Out to Pastoral by John Idol BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—3/28/11—Among American novelists I have taught most frequently and esteem highly, none stands higher than Nathaniel Hawthorne. Since coming upon “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and…
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A Man’s Bungalow, Cottage, Home, Hut, Mansion . . . Is His Castle
Out to Pastoral by John Idol “’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,/Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” —John Howard Payne “I in my own house am an…
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North to Alaska
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—2/14/11—When in early May, 1953, a Military Air Transport [MAT] plane taxied to a hangar at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, I joined other…
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An Irish Farmer-Poet: Trading Verses
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—1/31/11—I fly under the banner of “pastoral” and mean, in this piece to tell how, on a July day in Ireland, poetry and science came…
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Gonna Study War Some More
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—1/17/11—For much of its history, the United States has flexed its military muscle, by my count engaging in battle, at home and abroad, for well…
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Knocked Flat by a T.I.A.
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—1/3/11—I reached down to pick up a pair of pants and, suddenly, my right side went numb and my right leg folded under my weight.…
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Silent Spring, Summer . . .
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—12/20/10— Many books have impacted my life, some heavier than others, none heavier, I now realize, than Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Growing up on a…
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The Blind Minstrel of Deep Gap, NC
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—12/6/10—One man put Deep Gap, North Carolina, on the cultural map. His fans around the world know him as “Doc” Watson, though he would answer…
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Settling in to Wait for God
Out to Pastoral by John Idol HILLSBOROUGH, NC—(Weekly Hubris)—10/11/10—In personality, my wife, Margie, is no Diana, nor I Tom, but in situation we, too, are waiting for God in a retirement center, ours…