Living a Dream

Italy is so full of wonderful things and places that I've written about 20+ different places that we visited without getting to one of the most iconic structures in the entire country. I'm talking, of course, about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I don't actually remember our train route to Pisa from Milan, but I do know that I took a photo of the toilet on the train. It was the first time I'd ever seen a train-toilet that didn't even pretend that the waste was going anywhere other than the train track below.                                   (That's the ground) We hopped off the train at Pisa and started wandering, not really knowing where we were going. We sort of assumed that we'd get off the train and immediately see the Tower somewhere off in the distance and just walk that direction. We were wrong. Basically we left the train station and walked straight ahead in a 12:00 direction. The Tower was ...

Dear Mr. Dingman, I made a little stir a couple years ago when I wrote a letter to your wife. Sorry if that made it to your dinner table and caused any stress. Also, I addressed her by her first name but I know that your brother was the vice principal and I can only remember one of your first names so I'd hate to address the wrong one. Double-also I know your brother was the VP because I visited his office after I pantsed Dan Butters in gym class.   Anyway, this time I’ve come back for you but the tone is going to be very different. You were my history teach in 7 th  grade. While that's a formative time in a human’s life I didn’t necessarily expect to retain a lot of what I learned because, well, it was 7 th  grade history. However, you said something that has stuck with me forever. This is a crude drawing of the lesson. You challenged us to look at this undulating wave with its crests and troughs and determine what it represen...