Return to School

One of the abundance of gifts we receive in late August-early September, is coming back. Like Lazarus, we arise from summer somnolence or frenzy depending on our personal proclivities and our family situation, and return to our first calling: the classroom.

Every student is a potential A. Any learning experience can happen. The pencils are freshly sharpened, the chalk comes out of its box in long undented cylinders, the room smells of wax, summer afternoons, and that ever-receding horizon as we explore the subject matter we have chosen.

We’re poised on the edge of a continent – a universe. Together with our students of this semester, we turn our faces away from the placid ocean of summer lapping the soil behind us, and make our way toward that treeline on the far horizon. Learning continues.

The Books we Leave Behind

Ed Weninger died, and left his books to the library. There were 107 books about vitamins, food additives, cooking without additives, cooking with stevia. There were 410 books about investing (Investing for a profit, How to profit in the coming bad times, how to get rich in real estate, how to beat the stcck market averages, unimproved land speculation). There were 300 books on prolonging life (The Time-Life Series of Life, Living Forever, How to Avoid Hypertension, Your Blood Pressure). And there were 100 or so books on abstract issues (Christianity as a Worldwide Religion, the Encyclopedia of the Occult: a 20 volume set, including witchcraft, UFOs, and Egyptian alchemy). We sorted through them, shelved them for the sale, and thought about Ed (whom we never met, but who reportedly was a nice guy).

Then we came across three books on winning community elections and one on staying elected, plus duplicate copies of The Blood of Turin and The Power of Positive Thinking.

Ed may or may not have died rich, but eventually he went to the library in the sky, leaving his purchases for other minds to ponder. Better than if all he left behind was a stack of dusty textbooks, unopened since high school.