A speculative mind

  After two plus years of junior college, I had to decide where to go to continue my education. I was at a gray point in my life. I no longer considered myself a boy, but I didn’t really consider myself a man yet either. Some college done, but not complete. And what was my actual goal in life? What was I becoming? I needed to take the next step, but what was I going to step into? Track was very important to me. I had been accepted to the University of Oregon, but if I went there, I would be a small fish in a very big pond, as U of O had a nationally renowned track and field program. The coaching staff had not really gone out of their way to entice me to go there (no scholarship offer). A friend of mine had a connection with the new track coach at Idaho State University in Pocatello. The coach there (Jerry Quiller) was visiting my friend in Eugene and asked me if I would be willing to come to Pocatello and see the program. I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I said yes. We made arrange...

  Consider the Roman Empire, so vast and “eternal.” At least it would have seemed eternal to a Roman citizen living in it. At its height it stretched from Scotland to North Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean to Iraq. Imagine yourself as a Roman citizen living in the year 200 A.D. You would have considered the Roman Empire (your empire) to be something that would last forever. It had already lasted 600 years, and in fact it would continue on in one form or another for another 1200 years. It was all you had ever known. You would not be able to conceive of a day when the empire no longer existed. It was the world’s first superpower. It was militarily dominant. It exported its art, culture, and values to most of the known world. No one could remember the last time they ever lost a war. They even survived some incredibly bad emperors. I am talking: Nero, Domitian, Caligula, etc. These guys should not even have been allowed to run a tavern, let alone an empire. Yet even with these incompe...