Some Professor Says...

Folks who've followed me on Twitter for awhile (and not sure how else one would find this blog, really) will know I spend every spare second I can hanging out with my son, who turned nine a few weeks ago. I'd imagine all parents will say this, but he's quite something.  He's smart and funny and imaginative and writes constantly, reads well above his grade level, and has a better memory than anyone else I know.  He reminds me in turns of his mom, in his love of cats and taste in music, of my father, who forgot nothing ever and always seemed to have a smile on his face, and, sadly, of me, with a dreadful temper and no attention span to speak of. He is also on the autism spectrum with an ADHD diagnosis. It's amazing how awkward that discovery was--for quite a long time my wife and I made excuses.  He was a little young for his age; he was undersocialized; he was cooped up all day and had trouble concentrating on things. But eventually it was inescapable--too many peopl...

One of my Tweets (take that, Musk!) went semi-viral recently--for a historian on Twitter, that means Kevin Kruse retweeted me--for a link to a brilliant essay by one of my long-ago former professors, Barbara Fields.  It's here if you haven't seen it.  And it's got me thinking thoughts, about Fields, and about history. Dr. Fields meant nothing in particular to me at the time--I only had one class with her, and even there she was just a name on the top of the syllabus for "History of the South," the person who stood in front of the room and read every day from her pre-written lecture notes.  She did so with a style and ability that was, truly, phenomenal--she would go so far as to do the different Southern accents as she read off quotations.  I'll never forget the moment she switched from high-born Southern elite to Kentucky country twang.  It got a huge laugh, and I think of it almost every time one of my silly little jokes lands in lecture. (I especially thoug...