1. I have a hard time with eye contact. It must be from being a very bashful and introverted child. I try to look people in the eye in conversation, but I fail more often than not.
2. I love rib tips. In fact, any kind of grilled pork doused in barbecue sauce makes my mouth water. If you're ever on Bethel's campus and looking for a great meal or snack, try Double T's, just off Hickory a few hundred feet north of McKinley.
3. I once attempted 30 shots in a high school basketball game. Actually, I think I may have twice attempted 30 shots, or maybe one of them was just 29. Can you say, "pass the ball?"
4. One of my all-time favorite novels is The Brother's K, by David James Duncan. It's about baseball, family, and growing up through the turbulent 1960s.
5. I really like English majors. In fact, I think the world of business would be served much better if more business people had majored in English. Because reading literature is good for your soul, and the business world (especially in these chaotic economic times) desperately needs some soul.
6. I kiss my dog every day. And most days, he kisses me back. Don't tell anyone, but he (Morgan) has been swimming more than once in the ponds on Bethel's campus.
7. I am a very passive person. But my wife, Jeanie, is the most admirably relentless person I have ever known. Don't ever try to pull one over on her. You try to sneak a funny charge on our cell phone bill, you can jolly bet she will call you up and she will not quit until she has not just an apology and a credit, but free stuff to keep her as a customer. She is AMAZING that way. I'm a pushover.
8. I own a machine that pitches golf ball sized wiffle balls so that I can take batting practice in my backyard. I'm 38 years old. Last summer, I hit 18 homeruns in 52 games of fastpitch softball. It must have been the pitching machine.
9. Occasionally I have assigned students to read books that I haven't read yet myself just so that I will be forced to read them myself. Example: I had never read C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces until I assigned it the first time in one of my classes several years ago. Now it is one of my favorite books to teach.
10. I learn something new about literature from my students virtually every day during class discussions.
to be continued...
3 comments:
I assign books I've never read in order to get a free desk copy...
Is there any relationship between The Brother's K and the similarly titled novel by that one Russian fellow?
It's about brothers, one of whom dates a Russian Literature major for a while. Duncan is a lot funnier and a lot less preachy than Tolstoyevsky or whatever his name is.
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