tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28146552.post7459061836314501354..comments2018-04-12T00:15:33.334-05:00Comments on Straight Edge Hospitality Suite: "Limited Time" Is RedundantC. Meyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18394390594334484856noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28146552.post-10295493889703716472008-05-01T14:30:00.000-05:002008-05-01T14:30:00.000-05:00This week's poem: American Life in Poetry: Column...This week's poem: American Life in Poetry: Column 162<BR/><BR/>BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006<BR/><BR/>Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it "mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that sort of thing going on, wanted or unwanted, whenever a young person works for someone older. Richard Hoffman of Massachusetts does a good job of portraying one of those teaching moments in this poem.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Summer Job<BR/><BR/>"The trouble with intellectuals," Manny, my boss,<BR/>once told me, "is that they don't know nothing<BR/>till they can explain it to themselves. A guy like that,"<BR/>he said, "he gets to middle age--and by the way,<BR/>he gets there late; he's trying to be a boy until<BR/>he's forty, forty-five, and then you give him five<BR/>more years until that craziness peters out, and now<BR/>he's almost fifty--a guy like that at last explains<BR/>to himself that life is made of time, that time<BR/>is what it's all about. Aha! he says. And then<BR/>he either blows his brains out, gets religion,<BR/>or settles down to some major-league depression.<BR/>Make yourself useful. Hand me that three-eights<BR/>torque wrench--no, you moron, the other one."John Nelsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16750743777622261976noreply@blogger.com