The Higher Learning
The road north from the University town passed among fields and pastures. Along the way were one or two gas stations and a cluster of modest homes built for returning World War II veterans. I especially remember the cows that roamed the pastures, often close to the road. But more important to me, the road was plied by motorists willing to give a hitch-hiking college boy a lift. I was easily identified as a student by my books. I carried a loose-leaf binder with my needed books hooked to it. In those days, textbooks were modest in design and easily carried. On this one particular evening,...
Read MoreMeeting Alice Mary
I can recall the moment I passed from childhood into adolescence. I was sitting in my sixth-grade classroom, working on my mathematics drill, when one of those messengers from the office entered the room. She was a student my age, and I noticed something about her. Those excrescences I associated with grown-up women were there and quite prominent. And the mere contemplation of her bodily features was having an odd effect on me. It took me twenty years to realize this was the worst moment of my life — for I had entered a battle of sorts, one I was doomed to loose, even when I thought I was...
Read MoreThe Ark of Memory
Two nurses rooming on the third floor were having a party that evening. One of them had slipped a note under my door, bidding me to come and bring my own bottle. And so, shortly after nine o’clock, I climbed the steps carrying my fifth of Jack Daniel’s. The sounds of laughter and badinage reached me as I climbed, and I arrived on the third floor to find the nurses’ door wide open and guests overflowing into the hallway. The party had reached the point of uninhibited conversation. The kitchen was full of people mixing drinks as they talked and blew smoke, and one man eased past me...
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