The Spinning, Bagpipe-Playing Adjunct Professor

I think I'll share with you a man who has impacted my life.

I met him my Freshman year of college when he taught an intro to political science class and that is how I became one of his 'groupies.' He's your average looking retired adjunct professor; short blond hair (that does not seem to have any gray), glasses that he constantly leaves in the room after class, and an evolving style of dress that is surprisingly not out of date. He has an exquisite background--president of a university, former Deputy Secretary of Education, and worked on countless political campaigns. That is where the normalcy of this person ends and not at all the reason we adore him.

Ever read Tuesdays with Morrie, yeah, that's the sort of man he is.
He'd tell you about being in the same room as Dick Thornburg during Three Mile Island, then tell you how his dad worked for the steel mills when he was growing up. He'd share with you when he was working in a Congressperson's office marijuana lobbyist came to visit him with little pot leaf lapel pins, then tell you during graduate school he worked the shittiest jobs to get by. He is what makes lowly students believe we can make it--just look at him, a little Pennsylvania Dutch man that had our similar upbringing that got to do all these amazing things.

That is not where his uniqueness ends--after class he shares with his students his random hobbies and personal life: he takes bagpipe lessons, spins, lifts weights and has even been known to take ballet. He helps to raise his teenage granddaughter. He has an son who until recently was an unemployed lawyer living in his home, another son who works for the State Department and a daughter who's an editor in New York. He tells dirty religious jokes and tells you how much he loves Southern Bapist women because they brought him food when his wife was giving birth.

But when it really matters, he'll buy a student a gift and ask for directions to the hospital and that is why we really adore him.

Don't go creeping into a bear's cage.

What prompted me to begin a blog was the realization that the world and the people in it are just so peculiar. My inspiration sprouts from newstories, the people I meet, and the places I go.

Last Sunday in the world news section was a story about a college guy in China who was bitten by a panda bear. He was bitten because he broke into the bear's cage and proceeded to cuddle with it. Why you may ask? Well, he thought the bear looked so cute that he couldn't resist snuggling up to it. And appearently, Mr. Panda couldn't resist biting into his leg in the middle of the night.

Can't you see my reason to write?