Opinion

Now we know.

So often these days I find myself wishing we could find a way to make our politics and our public life reflect who we Americans really are.

I never know what to order when I go into one of those trendy new soup and sandwich places. The list of uncommon offerings is endless. The people standing behind me have obviously downloaded a menu at home and given this some previous thought.

One of my favorite classes in middle school was geography. I enjoyed reading about countries with exotic names, learning about their histories, languages, exports, types of government and especially religions.

Some adults don’t like to see teens trick-or-treating on Halloween. I’m not one of them.

During and after the recession of 2007 through 2009, college enrollment grew rapidly. That was partly just millennial-generation demographics: there were 3.5 million more 18- through 24-year-olds in the U.S. in 2010 than a decade earlier (and about 750,000 more than there are now). But the percentage of young Americans attending college and graduate school also hit an all-time high in 2011.

Since I could hold a pen in my hand, I loved to write.

When Facebook first began its meteoric rise, some of my students said they wanted to do a story on it for the student newspaper.

My neighbor, Phil Pillpusher, was raking leaves when I stopped.

In a recent NPR report, I heard the sad news that Gary Paulsen had died.