Dreams Failed and Fulfilled

By ROBERT MICHAEL

There I stood a few months ago, in a crowded corridor of the ugly concrete campus building that I loved. There I stood, staring at the key in my hand, ignoring the students and faculty members walking past me. The key to my office, where I'd spent the last 30 years and which I was about to strip of my stuff to divide among my wife, children, colleagues, students, and the Salvation Army. My whole world had seemed tucked away in that gray, windowless office, where each inch held a different