The Trailing Edge

  It's a funny thing, I have spent my life accumulating knowledge. It started after I left school. While in school, I did what was needed to get good grades. That is because everyone -- parents, teachers, the world -- measured me that way. I did not need to know anything, just remember enough in the moment to pass the tests. I of course did not realize what I was doing as a young student, but I am sure that my teachers knew. Not sure if it mattered to them as long as I got good grades. See, that's how the teachers are measured too: On my good grades. But, let's not rehash this critique of the educational system. After I was done with school, that is, done with college too, I started to read the books I should have read in school. I mean I did read these books in school but I did not really read them. I did not learn what there was to learn in them. The first book, oddly enough, was a book from one of my English Literature classes, The Scarlet Letter . I say oddly enough be...

My 11th-grade English teacher, Mr. Joseph, was brilliant. That year, we studied American Literature, and he walked us through the gamut of novelists, storytellers and poets from the Colonial era through the early 1960s. Yes, of course we started with The Scarlet Letter, but we headed into spring with Death of a Salesman. Mr. Joseph wasn't just brilliant, he was also quite funny. Looking back, I'm quite sure he had Tourette's Syndrome. He would sometimes pause in the middle of reading a story, form his hand into a gun and yell "Pow-pow-pow!" Or he would be taking attendance and split someone's last name into syllables separated by "Duh-uh-uh!" Always with a completely straight face. He wasn't ridiculing or threatening anyone -- these bizarre lapses didn't seem to be directed at anyone. They happened randomly and then he went right back to what he was doing.  But at the time, it appeared to be just another facet of Mr. Joseph's exceedingly ...