After four decades of trying not to be overrun in the Trenches of Academe, I learned a few things about teaching. And foremost among them is that while there are many qualities of excellent teachers, three are absolutely essential. First, they need an encyclopedic knowledge of their ...

At the tender age of 18 I grew my first beard. There was no hidden agenda or sinister motive behind it — I just thought having a beard was cool. Plus, I thought it made me look like a dapper and worldly sophisticate, blissfully unaware it only made me look like a little kid with a beard. But ...

Each generation has its own defining experience, which leaves its mark as indelibly as if it’d been scored with a branding iron. For mine, of course, it’s The Sixties. Ah yes, The Sixties. To the historically farmisht it was a brief time, easily understood and explained. To anyone ...

Ever since I was a kid I thought having a hiking staff was the epitome of cool. I never figured out the appeal: Old Testament prophet? Sherwood Forest anti-authoritarian? Moondog wannabe? No. Did it matter? It was just an image that floated into my mind from time to time ... and then floated ...

As an Adirondack kid of the 1950s and 1960s, I almost never saw hot weather. And even then, what we considered hot wouldn’t raise an eyebrow today. Average summer daytime temps hovered around 70 or so, and at night you needed a sweater to go out. If we had a “hot spell,” it might’ve ...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Eddie “The Shark” Clark, a fellow who combined the worst of both worlds. He was a diehard, unrepentant con man and a born loser. So while he spent his whole life going from one scam to another, he also went from one failure to another. And while he may ...