Excerpt:

In class one day, I show my students a video.  I ask them, has anyone seen this video before?  And one student, this 5^th year senior named Jon Testa, says, “Yes.”  And it’s kind of a rare video, not rare exactly, but definitely avant-garde, so I say, “Oh?  When did you see it?”  And I can tell he’s thinking hard and he answers, “Five years ago.”  So, in other words:  when he was a freshman.

Now this kid, Jon Testa, is a scruffy fellow.  He’s not the stupidest kid in my class – that would be Bethany Pinkus – but he’s not exactly imbued with a sterling work ethic either.

For the rest of the story, click on the “play” button below!

Excerpt:

The first time my heart stopped, I was twelve years old at my cousin’s wedding. The reception was held in this postal union hall, only my aunts had done everything over in lavender and yellow crepe paper. They had a D.J. of course – there’s no such thing as a wedding band in Iowa. The D.J. was my cousin Kenny, fifteen years old, awkward, pimply, really into stereo equipment and computers. His mother had recently been sent to prison for drug and parole violations, and so everybody was trying to give Kenny something constructive to do, you know, show him another path to take besides his mother’s.

Click on the “play” button below to hear more!