The Three-Legged Woman and Other Excursions in Teaching

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

thethree-leggedwoman &otherexcursionsinteaching a l s o b y r o b e r t k l o s e Adopting Alyosha— A Single Man Finds a Son in Russia Small Worlds— Adopted Sons, Pet Piranhas & Other Mortal Concerns thethree-leggedwoman &other excursionsin teaching RobeRtKlose u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s o f n e w e n g l a n d O Hanover and London University Press of New England www.upne.com© 2010 University Press of New England All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Eric M. Brooks Typeset in Whitman and Block by Passumpsic Publishing University Press of New England is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper. For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Klose, Robert. The three-legged woman and other excursions in teaching / Robert Klose. p. cm. isbn 978-1-58465-927-3 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-1-58465-952-5 (electronic file) 1. College teaching—Maine— Bangor. 2. Klose, Robert. 3. College teachers—Maine—Bangor— Biography. 4. University College (Bangor, Me.)—Faculty— Biography. I. Title. lb2331.k56 2010 378.1'25097413— dc22 2010020780 5 4 3 2 1 Excerpt from “Personal Helicon” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. The following pieces first appeared, in shorter form, in The Christian Science Monitor: “A Season for Seaweeds,” “I Rock,” “Let Us Praise the Bold Molds,” “The Truth Is in the Tape,” “What I Say and What They Hear,” “Whoa Is the State of English.” “The Three-Legged Woman and The Imp of the Paranormal” first appeared in Phi Delta Kappan as “Atoms vs. a Three-Legged Woman?” “The Skeptic” is reworked from a piece that first appeared in the Bangor Daily News titled “Martian Life? Ye of Too Much Faith.” “The Illiterati” was first published, in shorter form, in the Times Record (Brunswick, Maine) as, “Where Have All the Readers Gone?” o In Memory of My Father ...