Connecting on Castro Street

I live in the heart of conservatism, California’s south Central Valley. It’s my neighbors here who voted to protect marriage by denying that same right to gays. It makes for a challenging place to teach, and most of us keep our political views to ourselves, at least in the classroom.

Nevertheless, when a Rutgers student committed suicide after his roommate aired video of him “making out with a dude,” a small flurry of messages – well, at least four – hit our all-campus email.

Uncharacteristically, I joined in:

Some people may protest that the students at Rutgers were only playing a prank – they didn’t really hate the student involved. But actions have consequences, no matter what the intention. And that’s the angle I plan to take when I talk about this issue in class. . . . this isn’t a matter of politics – it’s a matter of basic decency and civility. I hope a discussion will help our students realize that words and actions have power, sometimes even more than intended.

Having thus committed myself, I had to follow through. I shared the Rutgers student article in every class. On the whole, even those students who “disagree with that lifestyle” were appalled by the roommate’s actions. I also mentioned the “Safe Zone” sticker on my door. It shouldn’t be necessary to label myself as “safe” – comfortable with gay concerns – but apparently it is.

Yesterday, I visited San Francisco with a group of students. Some had never been to this city before, never ridden a train, never bought a ticket for the subway – and perhaps never knowingly met someone who was gay.

Toward the end of the day, we all rode the trolley up Market Street to the Castro District. It was a lovely blue-skied day, with rainbow flags catching the sun. We saw a few presumably gay couples, a poster for drag queen shows, a shop with videos featuring two men, and a number of random tourists. Pretty tame stuff, really.

Nevertheless, our students found it intense. They were a bit uncomfortable – as shown by the nervous giggles – but still fascinated. The high point was apparently the guy in high heels with the purple wig. “I like your hair,” someone told him, meaning it.

As we descended into the station at Harvey Milk Square, I mentioned that I’d almost watched the opening of “Milk” at the Castro Theater. “That would have been so awesome!” one student exclaimed. “I loved that film!”

So, now and then, I see a glimmer of hope. Even the language suggests possibilities: the phrase “gay marriage” would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago. If language can change, maybe attitudes will follow.

Last week, when we talked about the Rutgers suicide in one class, the only anti-gay comments came from two thirty-something students. Many of the eighteen-year-olds claimed to have gay cousins or friends; most seemed at least somewhat accepting.

I think the change will come, but it feels slow. After all, it’s bullying by other teens that seems to have led to the current rash of gay student suicides.

Maybe it’s a mistake to keep our views to ourselves. I still think my teaching is most effective when I avoid pushing my own beliefs. But opening students’ eyes is another matter. And when it comes to basic civility and decency, we definitely need to take a stand.

The Power of Blogging

Blogging has power. I don’t mean power in affecting my readers, assuming there are any – I mean power in its effect on me.

When I first started consistently writing this blog in July, I didn’t know which direction it would go. The focus on hiking came as a surprise. What about all those other things I’d meant to write?

But somewhere in those early entries, I’d challenged myself. “I still want to reach those High Sierra Lakes,” I wrote in an early post. A few days later, struggling to reach a 9,000-foot meadow, I wondered whether I could even climb another thousand feet.

To my own surprise, the weekly hikes paid off – by mid-August, I’d carried my pack up Kearsarge Pass, at nearly 12,000 feet. And below me lay the lakes I’d longed to see.

But it wasn’t just the hiking that helped. There was something about the words – writing and publicizing them – that kept me going. Writing has power; words have consequences. Plodding up the trail, I composed blog entries. Most never reached the page, but even thinking the words gave me focus. It’s partly the blogging that helped me reach the High Sierras at last.

These days, I’m not writing much. Fall semester started immediately after that last hike. The words still write themselves in my head, but teaching and grading control my life.

Still, it makes me wonder. What else could I achieve? Maybe not the whole Crest Trail or a PhD – at least, not right now – but a finished novel?

Or, on a smaller scale, some story submissions or a few photos at a local gallery? Maybe, even, a less chaotic house before December, when my sixtieth birthday rolls around?

Into the Sierras - At Last

A week ago, I stood with a backpack at 11,800 feet on Kearsarge Pass, looking out into the Sierras. Ever since I moved to California, this is where I’ve wanted to be. Now that I’m teaching again, I’m still enjoying the afterglow. I wasn’t sure I could carry a pack that high.

It wasn’t the first time we’d tried this trip. About three years ago, Rhiannon and I had planned a September hike over Kearsarge Pass. I’d done part of the trail that summer, and it seemed a good route – a high starting point (9,100 feet), a nicely graded trail, a relatively short hike. But we awoke that morning to fog, rain, snow, and hail. We loaded our backpacks, stared up at the snowy rocks disappearing into the mist – and drove east to Death Valley.

This time we had sunshine. The trail went up and up from Onion Valley, past five lakes, but even the last switchbacks weren’t as bad as I’d expected. All those high country hikes have paid off. The slopes looked barren, but flowers hid between the rocks, including such new ones as the Sierra primrose. I kept stopping for pictures. Rhiannon waited. Other hikers stopped to chat – the high country is a friendly place. One hiker said he was a geologist in Antarctica.

And finally – the pass. Layers and layers of ridges and valleys, disappearing into a smoky haze from fires to the south. (The next two days were clear.) We rested for a long time, eating sausage and crackers, taking pictures, comparing notes with others. Eventually we hiked down to Kearsarge Lakes, with soup and freeze-dried chicken and rice for dinner. For morning, we planned an easy day of exploration.

After a slow meander past Bullfrog Lake, we headed up toward Glen Pass. I wasn’t sure I’d make it – at 11,900+ feet, it was even higher than Kearsarge – but it wouldn’t matter. By the time we reached the first little lake below the pass, it was three o’clock. I sent Rhiannon ahead with the camera – maybe I’d explore the upper lake and head slowly down while she took pictures from the top.

But soon I had second thoughts. When else would I be near Glen Pass? When else would I be fit enough to climb it? On the map, the second lake looked significantly closer to the pass. And beyond the lake were the final switchbacks.

With a sudden renewal of energy, I started up the trail. The second lake, like the first, was surrounded by barren rocks, but shooting stars and rosy sedum grew tall along the stream. Above the lake was the ridge. Through binoculars, I could just see a tiny Rhiannon silhouetted on top, taking pictures. I gave the family shout – “Aaah-oo-waaah!” She looked around, saw my whole body waving, and waved back. “I – might – come – up!” I shouted. She waved again.

Despite the switchbacks, the grade was gentle. My legs and lungs held out. I yawned, just a little, but wasn’t tempted to sleep – no snores this time. And up near the top, almost hidden under a boulder, was a blue flower I’d seen only in pictures – sky pilot, in the phlox family, said to grow at higher elevations than any other plant in the Sierras.

As I reached the ridge, Rhiannon and a young man from Montana cheered. The Rae Lakes lay scattered across a valley far below us. Rhiannon said the skinny one should be for lap-swimming.

Eventually we started down the switchbacks, trading the camera back and forth so we’d both be in the pictures. By the time we reached our camp, it was nearly dark, and a tiny crescent moon glowed in the west. I was exhausted – it had been a ten-mile day.


Friday morning, the trail up the west side of Kearsarge Pass was a lot steeper than the eastern one. I found more sky pilot, a bit faded, just below the ridge. Strangers congratulated us as we reached the top.

We hated to leave. On the way down toward Onion Valley, we stopped for rests, stopped for flowers, stopped for photographs – no hurry for the real world.

The hiking books describe this trail as “easy” and “short,” at least by Sierra standards. Well, yes – that’s why I chose it. But for me? As I said when I started this Blog, I’m short and round and out of shape – though less unfit now than earlier. In four months, I’ll be sixty. Maybe this is an easy hike for some people, but for me, it was a big deal.

I’m still studying the guidebooks. They make more sense now; I know those places. I’ve been there – into the Sierras. And even though it’s time for other things, I’m already thinking about the next trip.

Jefferson Park: The 20th Anniversary Mother–Daughter Backpacking Trip

It’s been several weeks since I last wrote. Blogging takes time. I can live life, or I can write about it. Lately, I’ve been living it.

Much has changed since I wrote last month. I kept hiking (and teaching). I finally reached Franklin Lake – a twelve-mile day. Another twelve-mile day took me to Pear Lake. Was I ready, finally, to carry a pack without getting totally wiped out?

This summer, it’s been twenty years since the first mother–daughter backpacking trip, when Rhiannon was ten years old. To honor this anniversary, she suggested we return to Jefferson Park.

On that first trip, we went in from Woodpecker Ridge to the south. The parking is high, and the side trail joins the Pacific Crest Trail for an easy hike north along the western flank of Mt. Jefferson.

We both remember that trip well – camping at a tiny lake, crossing a roaring river, and camping in mosquitoes and snow.

But what we mainly remember is the hike out. After a night or two, we continued north up Park Ridge, where we looked back down from 7,000 feet to the lakes and meadows of the “park” where we’d just camped. But to the north, where my mother was to meet us at Breitenbush Lake, a giant snowfield stretched for three miles, with only a single set of footprints showing the way.

We followed the footprints.

Several hours later, we reached Breitenbush Lake just in time to see the last car pull out of the campground. And there we sat down to wait. And wait….

Meanwhile, my mother – with her own mother, aged eighty-five, and Emily, who’d just turned six – was following a rocky track that became worse at every bend. Stopping near Ollalie Lake, she sought advice. “What kind of rig are you driving?” she was asked. She climbed back into her little Camry and continued on.

By the time the car arrived, we were cooking up the last of our camping food and preparing for a long night in the campground.

You might think that after a trip like that – the bugs, the snow, the long wait – we would have been discouraged. But no… we’ve backpacked every summer since then. Seven days across the Oregon Wallowas was the longest trip. A couple miles along Idaho’s Snake River (at 95-plus degrees) was one of the shortest. Sometimes the two of us go alone; other trips, we have company. Often we’re limited by time, or by my lack of fitness. But always, we do it.

This time we chose the Park Ridge route – it’s the most challenging way into Jefferson Park, but also the prettiest. Though it was early August, the trail still had long stretches of snow. We started up at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, hiking past tiny lakes and scarlet-colored paintbrush, through snowfields and swarms of mosquitoes.

We didn’t meet many people that day – just a few through-hikers, including a man who’d left the Mexican border on April 22nd. Though I’ve always wanted to do that whole trip, hiking six miles to Jefferson Park was enough of a challenge for now.

By evening, we were on top of the ridge, with Mt. Jefferson shining pink, and the sun somehow still lighting up the meadows and lakes of Jefferson Park beneath it.

The light faded during the downhill stretch. We could see Russell Lake below us, so I told Rhiannon to go find a campsite. I followed at my usual slow place. The trail seemed to go on and on. And on.

I tried a shout, the family contact call we’d used for finding each other in the African rain forest – Aaah-oo-waaah! No answer.

Finally I stopped, dropped the pack, and dug out the map, my glasses, and a head lamp. (I like head lamps: wherever you look, it’s light.)

Surprise – I’d missed the turn-off to the lake. I tried another shout and headed back the way I’d come.

After a while, I heard Rhiannon give our call. I gave the “I hear you” response – Oooh-oo. At our camp in the trees, I put up my tent while Rhiannon heated water for freeze-dried chicken with rice. We sat under the stars till nearly midnight. The Milky Way seemed to erupt from Mt. Jefferson, flowing north toward the ridge.

We spent Wednesday exploring meadows, photographing flowers, circling lakes, swimming in the reflection of Mt. Jefferson. Jefferson Park is a mosaic of patchy forest and green meadows where melting snow creates countless tiny pools. The pools mirror pieces of mountain and breed millions of mosquitoes. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.

Thursday we hiked out over the ridge, glissading down across the snow – Rhiannon quickly, while I followed more slowly.

I’m grateful to have a daughter who’s been so patient with me, all these years. And the promise of summer backpacking inspires me to push myself beforehand and travel long distances to wherever she’s working – Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington.

“You should be able to do this till you’re seventy,” Rhiannon tells me. Well, maybe. We’ll see.

Seventy-Six Trombones in the Classroom

There’s a place in The Music Man where Professor Harold Hill’s band finally has to perform. For months, taught by a con man who knows nothing of music, they’ve been picturing themselves as musicians, imagining the songs that will pour forth from their instruments.

As the people of River City gather, we all wait for what’s going to happen. Finally, the band members lift their trumpets and trombones. And out comes… not music, exactly, but something – a series of toots and squeaks that vaguely resembles “Seventy-Six Trombones.”

I’d like to think I’m a better teacher than “Professor” Hill, but there comes a time when my students have to perform on their own. When we design Student Learning Outcomes, we start with a “Given—”: “Given a musical score,” a Music SLO might read, “students will be able to play ‘Seventy-Six Trombones’ with acceptable accuracy.”

In English, it’s hard to come up with a good “Given—.” In my department, we go round and round, trying to define our expectations in measurable terms. But sometimes I think our goals should be more honest: “Given a blank sheet of paper, students will be able to write an essay that’s brilliant and perceptive.”

That’s what we expect them to do, after all: produce something out of nothing. We hold their hands, we give them all the help we can… but ultimately, they’re on their own. They have to write their own stories. All we can do is sit back and hope they’ve learned something – and watch as those first squeaky sentences appear on the screen.

Eagle Lake - 10,000 feet

When I told a colleague about my Sunday hike to Eagle Lake, he asked me what was most impressive. “Getting there at all,” I told him. That trail is never easy.

The first time I hiked it was in 2006, my first full summer in California. My daughter was working in Wyoming that year, and to do our annual mother–daughter backpacking trip, I needed to be fit enough for high-altitude hiking. I therefore chose a training hike that would reach the highest elevation in the fewest miles – Eagle Lake, at 10,000 feet, just 3.5 miles from the Mineral King parking lot at 7,800.

It was a gorgeous hike, but even the early switchbacks were difficult, and for the last half mile to the lake – through the trees after the trail traverses a wall of boulders – I stopped every few feet to breathe and force myself on. What’s more, coming down killed my toes – over the next month, both big toenails came off, and I couldn’t wear boots for the rest of the summer.

This didn’t stop me hiking. We still did our Wind River trip, but I traveled those whole three days in Chaco sandals… and I never did lose that light-headed feeling. And ever since, I’ve carried the sandals, just in case I need to save my toes.

I’d been up the Eagle Lake trail a couple times since, but each time, the altitude slowed me down. If I reached the lake at all, I’d collapse at the first viewpoint, eat my lunch, and stagger slowly down.

This Sunday, I wasn’t sure what would happen. The lower White Chief trail had been rough the weekend before, but hiking up the valley the next morning, I’d felt better.

Halfway up, I met a local woman who was just as slow as I was – and like me, she was looking at plants. We hiked the middle part of the trail together, stopping for penstemon and shooting stars, and I didn’t even notice the switchbacks. It was a pleasant encounter, and it reminded me of something I’ve long believed – Go where you want to go, and you’ll meet the people you want to meet.

Heading up the boulders on my own, I expected the usual problems. But reaching the lake, I felt so good I kept going. The sky was overcast, with thunder threatening from beyond the snowy peaks, but the lake reflected snowfields and interesting patterns of clouds.

At the far end of the lake, the pass seemed surprisingly close. “I could do that,” I told myself, mentally plotting a course across the rocks. But a solo climb above 10,600 feet wasn’t really very feasible.

Instead, I ate my cheese and crackers by the lake. After a while, I headed down, stopping to find the yellow columbines I knew were hidden in the boulders.

Eventually, I drove down the curves toward home, tired but satisfied – and ready to teach my 7 AM class the next morning.

On Pushing Myself to Hike

I awoke to the sound of a gentle snore – my own. I’d sat down for a brief rest along the Franklin Lakes trail, and there I was, dozing against a tree trunk.

This was the very trail I’d hiked with my daughter a few years earlier, when the altitude hit me the same way. Once we’d started up the switchbacks, I’d found myself repeatedly stopping to yawn, the yawns expanding almost to sleep. We’d meant to camp at Franklin Lake; instead, we made it just to the intersection. In the morning, waking to a frosting of new snow (it was October), we stowed our loads behind a rock and continued up to the lake at 10,000 feet.

Now I was hoping to repeat the same hike. Without a big pack, it should have been easy – but it wasn’t. Altitude struck at just the same place. Eventually I made it to where we’d camped, but that was as far as I could go.

Coming down, able to think more clearly, I found myself wondering what pushes me to keep going. Why, when it was so difficult to hike, was I not home watching television like everyone else?

By the time I reached the car, I’d written a whole essay about it. But apparently that’s as far as I got – it never reached the page.

That was a year ago. This past weekend, I hiked to White Chief Meadow, and I found myself re-writing the same essay in my head. Once again, the altitude hit me before 8,500 feet. Altitude isn’t really a matter of fitness – even the most athletic hiker can be affected. I’m never fast, but I do have strong legs and lungs. And yet, there I was, stopping for no reason, trying to convince myself to take another step.

Eventually I reached my favorite juniper, precariously perched on the ridge, and around the corner was the meadow. I’d reached 9,000 feet. As before, it was easier coming down.

And already, I’m planning the next hike. Can I go a little higher? Maybe. And maybe one day I’ll make it over the passes into the “real” high country.

How I Became a Teacher

I never meant to be a teacher. True, I grew up around university professors – everybody’s daddy taught college – but it wasn’t something I ever meant to do. Maybe I’d do science research (thus the Botany degree), but I never really thought about teaching.

In August of 1996, my sister and I were backpacking with our younger children in the Oregon Cascades. It rained. It always rained when we camped with those two – maybe that’s why my younger daughter is now an English major. (The older one, the one who hiked in the sunshine, became a botanist.)

As we sat under our tarps and watched the rain, my sister said she’d be starting a Master’s degree that fall – maybe she’d end up teaching. I couldn’t possibly teach, I told her. I wouldn’t know how.

Yet even while I claimed I couldn’t do it, I pictured myself giving this explanation to a class full of students. Gradually, it began to seem possible. And within three weeks, I was signed up for classes at the same university.

But while my sister was able to move from her Bachelor’s to a Master’s degree, my route was less direct. I couldn’t see myself teaching biology, imparting knowledge to an eager class. What I could imagine was something more interactive – teaching writing. I’d worked as a science editor for six years, and I’d always been a voracious reader. What could be more natural than being an English teacher? “I’d like to teach high school English,” I told the admissions officer.

“You need an English degree for that,” she told me. And by the end of September, I was starting a second Bachelor’s degree. I was forty-five years old.

After three years for the BA – where excellent professors urged me to teach at the college level – and another two for a Master’s, I taught locally at two universities and a community college for several years. But while I loved the work, I wasn’t making it financially. And it seemed clear that a part-timer would never be viewed as a “real teacher.”

At the beginning of 2005, I had a revelation: My life wasn’t working. What I needed was a full-time job, a job with enough pay to live on and enough time to write. Even if it meant moving far from home – alone.

That spring, I blanketed the west with resumes. The applications were laborious; I couldn’t write more than two or three each weekend. Consequently, I limited them to colleges where I thought I could actually live. Twenty applications led to five interviews, along with quick visits to the Olympic Mountains, the Rockies, the Sierras, and the desert east of San Diego.

In the end, I was offered one job. After a grueling summer of packing up the house – with a lot of help from family and a friend – I loaded everything into a 26-foot U-Haul and drove to California. I landed at a community college in one of the state’s most impoverished counties… with one of the nation’s finest national parks in my back yard.

Lying by the pool at that first apartment, I looked up past the green leaves and red tiled roofs to brilliant blue sky. “I’ve left it all behind,” I told myself. And for the moment, it seemed enough.

On Being a Writer

Half a lifetime ago, I took a non-credit creative writing class through a local community college. I still have the introduction I wrote for that class:

If I were eight or eighty, I might know for sure that I wasn’t meant to be a writer. At eight I could have chosen to be something else. At eighty I’ll know I’ve succeeded or failed. As it is, I’m thirty, and the time between writing phases, no matter how long they are, can always be counted as gathering experience or learning to write. My life is constantly being re-written as a story in my head.

Nearly thirty years on, I’m still wondering whether I’m a writer. I write. I write letters and journals and story ideas and creative teaching handouts. I’ve started unfinished novels, a children’s book, an African memoir, a book on teaching, and several essays. I’ve written two short stories that feel finished, and a dozen more that don’t. So, does that make me a writer? Or do I need to be published for anything to count?

I am published, of course. I have two short bird papers in Malimbus, the Journal of the West African Ornithological Society – the smallest of small publications. I’m listed as an editor on a forestry publication or two.

Maybe keeping a blog is the next step. At least I’ll have to finish an idea, rather than letting it languish in my files. Would that feel like publishing? I don’t know, but I think I’ll try it for a while.

Flying Over the Sierras

I was flying over the Sierras toward a conference in Boston when I had one of those revelations that make one reassess one’s life.

Looking down at that snowed-in mountain landscape, I wanted to be there. During that first year in California, I’d made it into the “foothills” – up to 10,000 feet – but I hadn’t really been into those mountains. The trails were too long, the passes too high.

I’d always wanted to walk the whole Pacific Crest Trail, Mexico to Canada. I’d hiked little segments – five days here, three days there – but a part of me still wanted to go the whole 2,650 miles. But I was fifty-five, short and round and usually the slowest person on the trail. People who passed me going up were often surprised, going down, to find me still plodding up the hill. Probably I wouldn’t become miraculously fit within the next few years. Maybe hiking the whole Crest Trail wasn’t really very realistic.

And then, as one does on long cross-country flights, I thought about other dreams. Would I ever earn a PhD? My dad had a PhD; my mom earned her Master’s when I was a teen. My own MA came at fifty, and then I faced a choice: either go for a PhD, or find a job before it was time to retire. I went for the money. At fifty-four, I became a full-time English teacher at a community college in California. If I want full retirement benefits, I’ll have to work till I’m eighty-four. Am I likely to try for a PhD? Probably not. And anyway, I don’t really need one.

But if mega-hikes and a PhD were out of the question, there were other dreams. I’d always seen myself as a writer. And I’d always written, but I hadn’t produced the Great American Novel. Still, writers mature with age. Maybe writing was the way to go.

It’s interesting that in this analysis, I didn’t ponder teaching. Maybe that’s because I already taught. Or maybe it’s that teaching was never my life-long goal; I came to it almost by accident. And though teaching college is the most rewarding work I’ve ever done, a part of me still demands more.

So, writing it would be, I concluded, as the snow gave way to desert below the plane. And for the rest of the trip, I planned my career as a writer.

But it hasn’t quite worked out that way. I write, but only in fits and spurts. When the weekend comes, I grade papers… or go to the mountains. I’m unlikely to hike the whole Crest Trail, but I still want to reach those High Sierra lakes. While hiking – and even while teaching – I think about writing. But it’s hard to write when you aren’t actually facing a computer. And many days, I’d rather go for a hike.

On What I Would Have Asked My Dad

(July 3rd). Today – exactly 32 years since my father died – I’m grading essays. The assignment was to interview someone significant and write an essay about that person. “The interview opened many doors of silence,” one student wrote, saying that his father now “tries to bring up conversations at the dinner table.” It’s comments like these that keep me re-assigning this essay.

Looking back, I remember my own silent mornings, riding along with my dad till he’d drop me near the high school and head for his university job. Each of us wanted to talk, but neither knew what to say. Why didn’t someone give me an assignment like this? What would I have asked if I’d been given that nudge?

I wonder whether I’d have known then – less than a decade before he would die – the right questions to ask. What was it like to be a husband, the father of children? How did his teaching affect his life? He was an Oceanography professor – these days, I teach college English myself. Yet back then, I never dreamed I’d go in that direction.

And there’s another question I often suggest: “Is there anything else I should have asked you?” How would he have answered that question, I wonder?

Prince Charles in the Classroom

I came into teaching late, which means I lived several other lives beforehand. Among other obscure accomplishments, I’ve climbed 250-foot Douglas-fir trees, studied African rainforest birds, and prepared barnacle specimens in a Welsh biology lab. All of these events enrich my English lessons – but only at the right moments. Now and then the perfect opening arises.

In a Food, Inc. essay that we read for class today, Peter Pringle discusses several reasons people fear genetically modified foods. “And some extreme leaders of the anti-GM movement, like Great Britain’s Prince Charles, are simply antiscience,” he finishes. What?

Before class, I miraculously located a long-ago scan on my computer and coaxed my balking printer into printing it. I waited till the end of the discussion to project it onto the screen.

“Actually, when Prince Charles visited the Marine Science Lab in Wales 35 years ago,” I told my students, “he was very well informed. Not only did he pay attention to every exhibit, he also asked intelligent questions.” As the scientists at the lab concluded, he’d done his homework well.

“Of course, he was a whole lot younger then,” I added. “And so was I.”

“That’s you?”

“What did you talk about?” one student asked obligingly.

I said I’d told him I was a histochemist. “But that was a lie,” I added. “I was really only a histology technician – I was just nervous.”

“You lied to Prince Charles?” And everyone laughed.

It was an enjoyable end to a good discussion, and it reminded me of how much we all bring to our teaching, no matter what our backgrounds. Where I teach, most of my students are first-generation college students; few have traveled far. They appreciate a glimpse into other worlds.

The picture, taken by my visiting grandmother, brings alive a world that’s both exotic and mundane. Young and earnest in my white lab coat, I gaze up at a prince. In the background, my boss blows his nose.

On Starting a Blog

Last fall I accidentally created a Blog site. I was trying to find a Blog belonging to friends who’d sent me a misspelled link, and I ended up creating one of my own. How interesting, I thought. Who would read a Blog if I wrote one? What if I simply started writing and didn’t tell anyone it existed? Would anyone discover it?

And then I became overwhelmed by the usual semester’s English teaching, and I forgot all about it.