[ My Time And Our Common Culture]

The Best Lesson I Was Given Is That All Of Life Teaches, Especially If We Have That Expectation.

My Parents, Grandmother And Brother Were Teachers. My Mother Taught Latin And French And Was The School Librarian. My Father Taught Geography And A Popular Class Called Family Living, The Precursor To Sociology, Which He Eventually Taught. My Grandmother Was A Beloved One-room School Teacher At Knob School, Near Sonora In Larue County, Ky.

For Sheer Majestic Geography And Sublime Scale, Nothing Beats Alaska And The Yukon. For Culture, Japan. And For All-around Affection, Australia.

I'm Interested In Smokers Standing On Ledges, And Big Box Stores, The Rise Of The Suburbs, And The Hollowing Out Of Small Towns. Self-storage. Things That Didn't Exist 50 Years Ago. Our Common Culture. What We Have Agreed Is Ok To Live With.

Actually, Ambition Won't Get You That Far. You'll Shift Gears. You'll See Something That's Shinier. But If You Believe... Then You're The Long-distance Runner.