Category Archives: memories

Not Exactly Epiphanies

Posted on July 23, 2016 by Boz

At the age of 36, I decided to get a master’s degree in English. I have elsewhere–well, everywhere, including in the introductory lecture of nearly every class I teach–suggested that I was standing in a bookstore, staring at the American literature selection, when … Continue reading →

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My Name Is Vicki, and I Am a Taphophile

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Boz

1960: My sister, my cousins, and I scrambled into the back of my uncle’s 1948 Ford pick-up and headed with our fathers to the cemetery overlooking the dusty town of Globe, Arizona. We played among the graves while they watered the grass … Continue reading →

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Forever Becoming: A Meditation

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Boz

Written at Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, 11 Nov. 2009 I was only 36, beginning a second graduate program—clearly, I was far from complete.  We who continually reinvent ourselves retain the illusion of eternal becoming far longer than those respectable adults with 2½ … Continue reading →

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Master, Mentor, Friend

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Boz

This is the last installment of my reminiscences about my decades-long and life-altering relationship with Professor John V. Mering, 1931-2009. Vicki/Victoria I spent hours during the summer of ’74 in the office of the history graduate students. We discussed history as … Continue reading →

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The Mering Chronicles (cont. from 6/11)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Boz

Hang-ups, hanging out, and hanging on I visited Dr. Mering’s office often to receive assistance with my writing, to ask for suggestions for outside reading, or simply to satisfy his curiosity about how “this girl from a little mining town in the West” … Continue reading →

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Rites of Passage Part III: John V., Il Miglior Fabbro

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Boz

Learning at the feet of the master  In furtherance of my naïve but exuberant efforts to learn how to think, my history T.A.-cum-guru John Hosmer suggested that I take a class with his Ph.D. advisor, John V. Mering. It was the … Continue reading →

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Rites of Passage Part II: My Endless Summer of Thomas Wolfe

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Boz

A naïve and sheltered twenty-year-old baby boomer from a copper-mining town in Arizona who asked her revered teacher/guru for a list of books to teach her how to think, I probably didn’t expect the internal cataclysm that ensued. But I … Continue reading →

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Rites of Passage Part I: A Motley Pentateuch

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Boz

Spring 1973: As an overachieving, overprotected, overweight college sophomore, I approached the end of the spring semester with the dread of impending loss. In addition to my accustomed success in school that year, I had incrementally begun the process—equally exhilarating and … Continue reading →

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