In the Beginning: Page Twelve

Earning my degree from ISU was much like my writing: fast, furious, and affordable. I graduated in two and a half years with an English degree and a double minor in Writing and Classical Studies (lots of Homeric Greek). One semester, as I recall, I took 22 credit hours, which may still be an ISU record! To say that I had a life outside of studying and writing would be a lie. I was boring to a fault, and I still am. All I did was read, write, and eat corn chips.

Still, along the way I wrote more than any of my professors could read.

In the winter of 1981, I also enrolled in a writing course with a visiting professor who, oddly enough, hand-picked me to read some of my work at a "conference". As it turned out, the conference was a local Terre Haute tavern inhabited by inebriated patrons who interjected cat calls and heckles into the mix as I was reading. And, looking back on it, I think the professor actually had a thing for young boys like me; but I was just too naive and stupid to pick up on his advances. But somewhere in my files, I probably have the fountain pen he gave me as a parting gift. So much for love . . . .

And it was long about 1981 that I also made a decision to apply to seminary. I felt called to work with God's words, among other things. Words, I thought, still had power to persuade, heal and save.

Along the way, I had actually accumulated a 3.8 GPA, which weren't too God-awful for a small town hick like me (and a far cry from my bottom-of-the-high-school-class ranking), and I applied to Southern Methodist, Yale and Duke . . . and was accepted by all three. I chose Duke because I liked the campus and the distance from home and I wanted to make my momma cry. And besides that . . . Duke had bathroom walls that were unadorned by poetry. I checked. And so I had a blank slate to work with.

And during my brief years at ISU, I had begun to have some good fortune getting my work published . . . poetry mostly (which was so awful, I can't bear to read it now) and a few light essays and humor pieces.

On my final walk across the ISU campus, I also happened to run into Karl, who told me: "Whatever you do, don't stop writing. You've got the fire in the belly, and don't ever let it go out."

Thanks, Karl. It's still burning.