WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you finished reading recently? To Rescue the American Spirit.

WHAT are you reading now? A surprise SF title and A Time to Heal by Gerald Ford. Also trying to finish Kennedy and Nixon. Oh, and I have a good start on Angle of Repose. I might have a problem.

WHAT are you reading next? Probably one of these three. I’m still in my reading mood and I just watched two D-Day movies.

Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is, “A Story About Your Best Teacher”. I don’t think I can pick a best teacher; I have been blessed with more than a handful of people who were passionate about their students and their subject,  and who managed to bring the two together.  One man is worth mentioning, though, and I’ll call him “Mr. M” for now. Mr. M was my first college-level history professor;  he was approaching retirement when I began taking classes with him, and as such was delightfully candid with his sidebars.   His political philosophy was something akin to Bob Heinlein — a mix of libertarianism and militant anti-communism. (The first time I ever heard the name “Ayn Rand” was in his classroom!)  When he was thinking, he had a habit of closing one eye and looking up as he pondered. He liked telling funny stories that connected with a point, and had a wonderful voice for it. (He was deep, dry, and sarcastic.) What I remember most about him, though,  is that he introduced me to history as a worldview, a pattern of thinking.  I remember vividly when he assessed our textbook, saying he felt that the author handled  this part fairly well, but that they were weak on this part, and my eighteen year old mind was blown.  I was still a kid, really, and the idea that textbooks were not The Authority – that they were written by people,  that these people had limitations and biases – was entirely new to me. In another instance,    we were discussing one of my incorrect exam answers (he was always concerned if I scored less than a hundred given that I always made hay with the bonus questions), and he told me not that I was wrong, but he explained to me the difference in characters between the king I’d vainly tried to remember and the actual king. As I remember, it was a matter of which English king tried to fight for religious toleration for Catholics. It was a moment of nestling so deep into history that kings became not answers to questions, but real people whose personalities we could grasp.  Mr. M was an inspiration and mentor to me, and we remain in contact –  he was actually my baptismal sponsor. Unfortunately, after decades of teaching he has evidently decided he is more interested in listening, as he rarely pipes up in Adult Formation unless we deliberately ask him what he thinks! Oh, and how’s this for a coincidence? Mr. M was in my facebook memories today!

I am not entirely sure why I called him Mark Twain incarnate after all these years, though.