So far, I haven’t gotten tired of blogging. I hope you haven’t tired of reading. I know that some blogs are better than others; none are great. I know also that this is inevitable. Of course, I’m not striving for literary excellence. My two aims, as I have said, are to have a little fun blogging now and then, and possibly as well, to be of some small help to readers. I’m also aware that the subject matter that I have chosen one day may appeal to any given reader, and the next day’s subject, not at all. I have been receiving enough responses for me to suspect that I may be achieving something like what I’m aiming for. So, I guess it isn’t likely that I’ll give up on doing it any time soon.

One interesting phenomenon that I’ve noticed is that the blog pattern inspires responses that, like blogs, are brief. Prior to doing them, the emails I received were often quite lengthy. Most of those I was unable to answer for lack of time. In the past I have even gotten a couple of inquiries about topics, book lists and subject matter for dissertations—in other words, requests for me to do all of the spade work for the writer. I’ve done my own over the years; I don’t plan to produce any more dissertations! Unh unh!

Speaking of dissertations. I almost lost my doctoral dissertation before presenting it to the faculty of the Univ. of Missouri. Betty and I were driving off the Westminster campus in Philadelphia when she spotted a tiny raccoon huddled up against a wall, frightened by the rushing traffic. A “We’ve got to help it” plea made me pick it up and turn around to secure it in the car. As I did, I placed the dissertation on top of the car as I covered the little bear (they are bears, you know) with a blanket so as not to have him wandering all over and, certainly, to guard my dissertation. As we drove off to the hardware store to get some chicken wire to make a pen for the little beast, Betty asked, “Where’s your dissertation?”

“I thought you had it,” I replied.

“You didn’t give it to me,” she said.

Then I remembered the roof of the car—“I left it on the roof!” I shouted, spinning the car around and heading back to the campus grounds again. There, to our shock was Ed Clowney, the president of the faculty and a student picking up pieces of the dissertation that had blown off the roof in all directions. As we finally collected them all, Ed remarked, “I never saw a dissertation cover so much ground!’ I didn’t think it was funny——at the time.

I barely do so now!