Category Archives: education

The English Major and Ford Madox Ford: A Tale of Passion

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Boz

                  The Chemistry Major At this late date, newly minted Medicare card tucked safely in my wallet, I suppose it’s time to admit, mostly to myself, that I have always been what … Continue reading →

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Yellow Fleas

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Boz

The end of Reconstruction in 1877 gave birth to the Solid South. In both Presidential and state politics, the South retained its essentially single-party identity until the passage of the Civil Right Act in 1964. During that time, Southerners would … Continue reading →

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Reconsidering the American Consensus–and Rehabilitating the 1950s

Posted on April 29, 2018 by Boz

The Mering thesis and the roots of consensus history At the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s, John V. Mering inculcated his disciples with a devotion to the consensus historiography whose bedrock was The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It … Continue reading →

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The Armistice: A Remembrance

Posted on November 25, 2017 by Boz

The 99th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I took center stage in my English 112 class on Friday, November 10. For more than a year, I have been preparing to guide my students on this journey through … Continue reading →

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The Classroom, the Headlines, and a Lesson in Perspective

Posted on November 23, 2017 by Boz

By  the time I was in the third grade, in thrall to the eccentric Mrs. Nina Williamson who taught us our multiplication tables and read Thornton W. Burgess to us after lunch each day, I had decided that I wanted … Continue reading →

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Something Old

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Boz

I still have the tattered Golden Book of Nursery Tales (1948) and Mother Goose Book of Nursery Rhymes (1953) presented to me at birth. At a time in my life when preserving the past evidently mattered less to me, I removed the … Continue reading →

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Viewing the Eclipse with the Sororal Twins

Posted on August 26, 2017 by Boz

I was ten years old when I made a pinhole projector from a shoebox for my first solar eclipse on July 20, 1963. It reached a mere 30% totality over Globe, Arizona, but I was a curious child, and seeing … Continue reading →

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Erasing History: The 2017 Version

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Boz

“In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on to the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was the great turning point in the … Continue reading →

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Nunie: Words, Pictures–and Music

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Boz

Since Just(e) Words made its debut more than a year ago, I have shared in its virtual pages my memories of several formative individuals–including a three-post, 5,000-word homage to my mentor at the University of Arizona. I have also noted more than … Continue reading →

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I Never Saw a Moor; I Never Saw the Sea

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Boz

              I never even had a passport. But I know the heather because I have walked the moonlit moors with Catherine and Heathcliff. I know the roiling sea because I sailed on the Pequod and clung … Continue reading →

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