That Senator in the Headlights Look

This afternoon, my brother sent a picture of my nephew with Lamar Alexander, two-time governor and current U.S. senator from Tennessee. Alexander has been a major part of this state’s political scene since the 1970s and ran in the presidential primary in the 1990s. In short, he has long been one of the most powerful politicians in Tennessee.

This post is not about Alexander’s political career or about my nephew having his picture made with him. It is about a night that my friends and I had a “run in” with him.

Several years ago, we were driving to Knoxville to watch the University of Tennessee play basketball. My friend Jeff was driving, which is always a little adventurous. He was the one driving when we encountered “The Terror on the Plateau“.

Anyway, we were running late and pulled into the parking lot a few minutes before the game was going to begin. Jeff was whipping through the aisles trying to find a parking place. He rounded a corner at what felt like a blazing speed when his headlights fell upon a man walking from his car. The man turned with that “deer in the headlights” look and raised his hands for protection. Honestly, he looked like the one-armed man in The Fugitive.

Jeff slammed on his brakes and skidded to a stop. The man stood there. We sat there. That’s when I said, ” Jeff, you almost ran over Senator Lamar Alexander.”

When the shock wore off, the senator walked away as fast as possible. We found a parking spot and made it to our seats, where we could see Alexander sitting across the court. A few minutes before the game was over, we noticed that he had left. We assumed that he wanted to get out of there before that madman got back behind the wheel.

Thinking back on that night, I have often wondered how history would have been changed if Jeff had plowed into a senator.

Those Are Not Cheese Sticks

Several years ago, some friends and I traveled to Chicago to watch our favorite team, the University of Tennessee, play football. They were playing Notre Dame, and it seems that weird things always happen with those two teams get together. This weekend was no different.

Two of my friends, Mayor and Rick, flew up earlier in the day, and I flew up later with Larry. The plan was for us to meet at the hotel. Larry and I landed; made our way to the hotel; and found out that Mayor and Rick had gone out on the town. We decided to go out and grab some food.

The hotel sat a block from Michigan Avenue, so we walked over to see what we could find. We walked pass a steak place, but that wasn’t really what we wanted. Some other places looked interesting but didn’t appeal to us. Finally, Larry looked across the street and saw an Italian restaurant. It looked a little fancy for the way we were dressed, but Italian sounded like a good choice.

The place was definitely fancy, and it was packed. It was hard to walk through the place, but we squeezed our way to the bar. I can’t remember how long we waited, but I remember that we had a long conversation with an older couple from Nebraska. I also remember that the lady was covered in diamonds.

By the time we got to the table, Larry and I were both starving. The waiter, who had an accent that I can’t type in, came over for our drink order. Before he could get away, Larry said that we wanted an appetizer, and the following exchange took place.

“Hey, bring us some of these cheese sticks.”

“Sir, those are not cheese sticks. They are mozzarella slices.”

“I don’t care what they are. Just bring us some.”

It wasn’t long before we got the mozzarella slices.

Then, we ordered our meals. I can’t remember what I got, but I distinctly remember that Larry got lasagna. I also remember that he only ate about half of it. I thought that was weird because I had never seen Larry leave anything on a plate.

“What’s wrong? Is it not any good?”

“It’s ok. I just don’t want anymore.”

That was pretty much it, and we made our way back to the room. By this time, Mayor and Rick had returned. They told us what they had been doing, and we told them about the snobby waiter, but we didn’t talk for long because we needed to get up early to make it to the game. Mayor and Rick slept on beds while Larry and I slept on rollouts. This means that we were packed in there.

At some point, I heard Larry get up and step over my bed. None of us stirred, but we woke up pretty quickly. Larry went to the bathroom, and strange noises started coming out of there. He was moaning and groaning. He was grunting. We didn’t know what was happening, but we knew it must have been bad. It sounded like he was dying. This went on and on and on.

We started to get worried, and Mayor said that somebody needed to check on him. The problem was that none of us wanted to go in there. We didn’t know what we were going to see. All along, Larry kept making sounds that made me think of The Exorcist.

At some point, one of us mentioned that we should take him to the hospital.

We were worried. Larry was dying. This was a serious situation. Then, it happened. Through the grunts and the groans Larry yelled, “THE SON OF A BITCH POISONED ME!”

That was the end of the seriousness. Although Larry was still struggling, the rest of us could not stop laughing. At some point, Larry made it out of the bathroom. He survived but his clothes didn’t. I’m not sure what happened to them, but the hotel probably had to call in a hazardous waste crew.

The next day, Larry went to the game, but he was pale as a ghost. Tennessee won on Saturday, but the waiter won on Friday night.

Digging Up Bones

Most days in a history department are what you would expect. We teach classes. We talk to students about issues that they may have. We grade. Boy, do we ever grade. We also find time to serve on committees, do research and perform other activities. However, there are a few days when something different happens, and we have a historical mystery drop into our laps. That’s when our historian/detective curiosity kicks into gear.

It happened several months ago when I was looking at the website for The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. They had put together a slide show of historical sites in our area. It included the usual suspects: the Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson; the Jack Daniels Distillery. You know, things that people around the country may have heard of.

As I scanned the photos, it was surprising to see the Mitchell House, a historic home in my town.

This is not where Gone With the Wind was written.

It was more surprising to read that Margaret Mitchell had written Gone With the Wind in the same house. This couldn’t have been true because Margaret Mitchell was from Atlanta, and she was writing about Atlanta. Besides, no one had ever heard of this before.

I told all of this to my cohort, who has a great blog about Jacksonian America, and he went into action. He contacted experts and discovered, not surprisingly, that she did not write the book in my town. After that, he contacted The Tennessean to tell them how wrong they were. As far as I know, the mistake was never changed.

I wonder how many Gone With the Wind fans have found themselves at the wrong house.

Frankly, my dear. I don’t know where we are.

Today, another mystery appeared when we received an email from a man who graduated from our university in the early 1970s. According to the story, he and several students were interested in archaeology, but the school did not offer classes in this subject. With the help of a faculty member, they formed an archaeology club and organized a dig a few counties over.

To their surprise, they found the skeletal remains of a Native American women who died over 300 years earlier. They exhumed the remains and sent them to the University of Tennessee to be further examined. After that examination, the remains were returned to our university and placed on display in the administration building.

(I interrupt this story to make an observation. It is hard to believe that there was a time when displaying the remains of a human in a lobby was considered acceptable. Happily, things have changed through the years.)

The man who emailed wanted to know what happened to the remains, and that is where the mystery begins. Both of us, myself and my history cohort, graduated from the university that we now work, and neither of us has ever heard of the skeleton in the lobby. Because of that, we are going to contact some “old timers” to see if they know anything.

Hopefully, we can locate the remains and return them to a proper burial, but I suspect that they are lost. When we bury our loved ones, it is hard to imagine someone digging them up and putting them on display. But, it can happen. Just ask any Native American.

Tennessee in 1923

When you teach history, people tend to give you old stuff. It’s cool. I like old stuff. It’s just something that I have noticed. A few months ago, a friend gifted me with the 1923 version of The University of Tennessee Record, the catalog for the 1923-1924 academic year. It was a fitting gift. It’s historic. It’s academic. It’s from the university whose teams I have supported since I was a kid.

Looking through old books is always interesting. It’s fun to see how different things used to be. Recently, I wrote about a compilation of United States history from the 1870s and the strange subjects that were found within it. This book also provides some interesting tidbits.

The calendar looks similar to the calendar that my university uses. It shows when classes begin and end. Commencement, the goal for everyone, is held in the morning. It’s on Wednesday morning, which seems like a weird day to have it. However, there is one major difference between the calendar then and the calendar now. They had the day off on George Washington’s Birthday! I don’t know why they would do that. After all, he was only the Father of the Nation.

Remember me?

A few pages later, it lists the different colleges and schools within the university. I found the College of Liberal Arts interesting because that is the one that I teach in. They have all of the usual suspects – College of Engineering, College of Agriculture, School of Education, School of Home Economics. Wait, what? The School of Home Economics? Yep, that really existed. Somewhere in the book, there is a paragraph talking about how the University of Tennessee welcomes female students. I guess this is where they planned on sticking them.

To get a degree in Home Economics, a student had to take some general electives and 16 Home Economics classes. It doesn’t specify what those classes are about, but I can imagine.

I don’t know the year, but this is a canning class at UT.

Today, the university has an agriculture extension program that places an agricultural agent in each Tennessee county to assist the farmers in that area. The university also did that in 1923, but it also sent out a home demonstration agent. In my county, the agriculture agent was E.F. Arnold, and the home demonstration agent was Miss M.S. Henderson.

The section titled “General Information” is, as would be expected, full of information. It turns out that students were required to attend chapel and were expected to go to church. That would really go over well at a public university these days. The next paragraph, call “Christian Activities”, covers the importance of Christian groups on campus. That’s alright. There are Christian groups on campus right now. However, there are also other groups for the religious and non-religious.

As a fan of the University of Tennessee athletics programs, I wanted to know what was happening in 1923. Today, the athletic department, to the chagrin of many academic types, is the most famous part of the university. It generates publicity and millions of dollars. Back then, it generated two paragraphs in the Record.

The first paragraph begins as follows, “Athletics are encouraged in so far as they do not conflict seriously with the academic work.” That is quaint. It goes on to say that the university is a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Conference.

S-I-C!!! S-I-C!!!

The second paragraph thanks W.S. Shields and others for purchasing land for a new physical education field. It would be named Shields-Watkins field. It looked like this.

Now, it looks like this.

I’m in there somewhere.

As written earlier, I was interested in the College of Liberal Arts, but I was specifically interested in the History Department. Within it, I found three faculty members – James D. Hoskins, who also served as the Dean of the University; Phillip May Hamer; and, Marguerite Bartlett Hamer. I assume that they were married. Three faculty members. That’s how many we have at my small, private university.

There are other interesting aspects of The University of Tennessee Record, but it’s getting late. Like other books from the past, it provides an insight to what the world was like in 1923 and how different (and how similar) it is to our time.

Miracle at South Bend

While reading this blog, some of you may have realized that I am a fan of the University of Tennessee. However, I am not just a fan. I am a fanatic. As a certified fanatic, I have been lucky enough to attend numerous football games throughout the country. I don’t know how many games I have attended. The best way to describe it is to say that if there has been a game played over the past 38 years, then chances are good that I was there.

Bunches of games have been forgotten, but a few, both wins and losses, stand out. One of those is the 1991 game against Notre Dame. It has gone down in Tennessee history as the Miracle at South Bend. Tennessee fans throughout the nation remember that game and have a story that goes along with it. However, my story is a little more supernatural.

My brother and I took an RV with some people that we did business with. The trip northward was filled with food, drink, laughter and anticipation. Notre Dame, coached by Lou Holtz, came into the game with an 8-1 record, while Tennessee stood at 5-2. It was the 300th game to be played in storied Notre Dame Stadium and was Senior Day for players like Jerome Bettis.

We arrived in South Bend to find temperatures in the single digits and snow spitting from the sky. Most of our group, including my brother, wanted to hang around the RV and tailgate. I remember one of our crew wearing a short-sleeve shirt, thin khakis, loafers without socks and a windbreaker. He should have been cold, but I’m sure that he wasn’t.

I didn’t want to tailgate. I had never been to Notre Dame and wanted to walk around the historic campus. There was Touchdown Jesus.

After the last field goal attempt, he was crossing his arms.

There was the grotto.

It’s a beautiful place.

Of course, there was the stadium.

It was filled with people when I was there.

I walked into the stadium as soon as the gates opened and found my seat in the end zone. There was an old man sitting in the seat next to mind, but I was too busy taking in the scene to say anything to him. Finally, he spoke and said:

“What part of Tennessee are you from?”

“I live close to Nashville. Do you live close by?”

“You could say that. How do you feel about the game?”

“I don’t feel very good about it.”

He smiled slightly and said:

“Don’t worry. Your team is going to win 35-34.”

That’s the last thing we said to each other. As game time approached, more people filled the seats, and my brother showed up. Then, the game began. At least, it began for Notre Dame. They ran and ran and ran. Up and down the field they went. With the first half coming to a close, Notre Dame was up 31-7 and was lining up for a field goal. My brother said that if something dramatic didn’t happen, then he was going back to the RV.

Something dramatic happened. Craig Hentrich, who would later punt for the Tennessee Titans, had his field goal blocked and Tennessee returned it for a touchdown. Everybody went crazy, but the man next to me never moved. Throughout the game, he never stood. He never talked. He never did anything but watch.

At the half, Notre Dame led 31-14, and my brother did not go back to the RV. It’s a goog thing because the second half belonged to Tennessee. They gradually cut into the lead, and, for some reason, Holtz abandoned the run and started throwing. Tennessee crept closer and closer. Coming toward our end zone, Tennessee scored to go up 35-34. I remembered what the man had said and turn to tell him that he was a genius, but he never looked at me.

Notre Dame got the ball and went back to the run. They should have been doing it all day because they drove straight down the field. With a few seconds left, they lined up for a short field goal to win. However, Notre Dame had a problem. Hentrich had been injured on the earlier field goal, and the backup kicker had to come in.

The snap. The hold. The kick. One of our guys flew in, and the ball hit him in the hip. The ball kept going but was wide left. Tennessee fans went crazy. We were jumping, hugging, giving out high fives. Tennessee won 35-34, just like the man said we would. I turned to hug him, but he was gone. The man had vanished into thin air.

Then, my brother was pulling at me. As the Notre Dame band played, Tennessee fans were storming the field. We had to go with them. We hugged players, coaches and other players wearing orange. We mingled with the band and Notre Dame players. We grabbed grass to keep as a souvenir.

It was the greatest ever comeback against Notre Dame. It was one of the greatest wins in Tennessee history. It was a game that made me wonder. Who was that guy? How did he know what the score would be? How did he suddenly disappear? I have always heard that there are ghosts in the stadium at Notre Dame, and I am convinced that I met one of them.

How I Spent the End of the World

Ok, the world survived. Never mind that the world was not going to end, and the Mayans never said that it was. The Internet, pop culture, social media, and people in general took something (the Mayan calendar) that they didn’t understand and made something out of it that it never was. Shocking, I know. That never happens in modern times.

Some people prepared for the end that never came. Others joked about it. Some people had clever things to say on Twitter and Facebook. I spent 12/21/12 doing the following.

I was awake at midnight surfing the Internet and playing Slingo on my iPhone.

This is the guy that’s going to cause the end of the world.

In essence, I was succumbing to the same addictions that I succumb to every night.

I woke up to find the sun shining and the wind howling. In other words, it looked warm outside, but it was actually cold.

I took a shower, got dressed and did the only thing to prepare for the end of the world. I put on the t-shirt with “12.21.12.” printed on the front. In case it happened, I wanted everyone to know that I knew it was coming.

Once I was prepared for the day, I met the usual folks for our weekly Friday lunch at Gondola, the local Italian restaurant that is owned by Koreans.

I could only find a picture of the Gondola sign. I wonder if that is a sign of the apocalypse.

We talked about sports, local politics, national politics and the end of the world. The end of the world part went something like this.

One of Them: When did the Mayans go extinct?

Me: They didn’t go extinct. They still exist. In fact, I read an interview with a few of them on CNN.

One of Them: You mean the Spanish didn’t kill them?

Me: No, the Europeans did not kill all of the Native Americans.

One of Them: I thought they killed all of the Indians.

Somewhere along the way, I changed the subject.

After lunch, I went to my parents because their phone lines had been knocked out. It was that howling wind that I mentioned earlier. It knocked lines down everywhere. Unfortunately, it also knocked out their Internet, which is almost like the end of the world.

After that, I sold 6 tickets and a parking pass for the Music City Bowl. Vanderbilt is playing in the bowl this year, which means that Vandy made a bowl game two years in a row. That’s a first for them and is a sign of the apocalypse if there ever was one.

Let’s see. Then, I bought one last Christmas gift before meeting my friends to go to a University of Tennessee basketball game.

They play here. It doesn’t look like a Mayan pyramid, but it’s a pretty good place to watch a game.

We made the trip to Knoxville and got there just before tip-off. It was a victory by the Big Orange over Western Carolina.

We made it back safely. Now, I am writing this end of the world post while still wearing my end of the world t-shirt.

The Great Pumpkin Carving Escapade

Tonight, I carved a pumpkin for the first time in years. It was great fun, and mine turned out quite well considering my lack of expertise. My handiwork was not worthy of being immortalized on the Internet. Therefore, tonight’s festivities will be honored with pictures of some of my favorite things carved into pumpkins. I have no idea who made these, but they are great artists.

AC/DC

Hell’s Pumpkins

University of Tennessee

Touchdown Pumpkins

John Wayne

Pumpkin Cogburn

Elvis Presley

Ladies and Gentlemen! Elvis Has Left the Pumpkin!

Marilyn Monroe

Pumpkins Like It Hot

Darth Vader

Luke, I Am Your Pumpkin.

Clint Eastwood

The Good, the Bad and the Pumpkin

This is an incomplete list, but I couldn’t find one with Barney Fife.

The Cullman Comet

This weekend, my friends and I drove to Starkville, Mississippi to watch the University of Tennessee play Mississippi State University in football. The best way to get there from here is to go through Alabama. Yes, Mississippi borders Tennessee but going through another bordering state is the fastest route. Weird, I know.

It is also the best route because it allows us to stop in Cullman, Alabama and eat at the All Steak Restaurant, home of the world-famous orange marmalade rolls.

Passion on a Plate

We got a lot of looks as we walked in because we were wearing the colors of our team, and that’s not something seen very often in Alabama. An elderly man wearing a crimson University of Alabama shirt took special notice and walked to our table when he was finished eating. He was a nice man who asked us where we were from and what we thought about our team. After a few minutes, we offered him a seat.

He introduced himself as Tom Drake, and we spent the lunch hearing the story of his life – one of the most interesting stories I have ever heard.

Mr. Drake was born in Cullman County and found his way from there to Chattanooga, where he played football and wrestled in college. After college, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the army drafted him, as well. In those days, the federal government was more powerful that the NFL, so off to the army he went.

After being honorably discharged, Mr. Drake was hired by Bear Bryant to coach wrestling and football for the Crimson Tide. When we asked who was the best player he ever coached, he did not hesitate to say Joe Willie Namath. However, coaching was not his calling, and Mr. Drake went to law school.

Bear Bryant and Joe Willie Namath

While still enrolled in school, he won a seat in the state legislature and continued to be elected for 32 years.  During that time, Mr. Drake served as Speaker of the House and worked closely with infamous governor, George Wallace.

In Birmingham, they love the governor.

Now, that is an event filled life, but there was more. Mr. Drake spent his spare time as a professional wrestler. Fighting under the name “The Cullman Comet”, Mr. Drake fought against some of the most famous wrestlers of the era. He was later inducted into the International Wrestlers Hall of Fame.

The Cullman Comet

With such a wide array of talents and experiences, Mr. Drake made a perfect contestant for What’s My Line?, and he appeared on that show in the 1970s.

We barely had time to ask questions as he told story after story. However, his most important story was about his wife. They did everything together, but she died a year ago from brain cancer. He said that he still hasn’t recovered from the loss, and I got the feeling that he just needed someone to talk to. He needed to talk about his life and his memories, and I felt honored that he picked three strangers who were wearing the wrong colors.

Mr. Drake said that he is writing a book, and I hope that he finishes it. The book would chronicle a man’s life but also a piece of our history. I was reminded during lunch that history can be found anywhere. It can be found in old documents, but it can also be found in a conversation at the All Steak Restaurant in Cullman, Alabama.

Immortalized

It seems that I have been surrounded by immortals lately. Not real immortals, but the ones found in the pages of books. I just finished Blood Line by James Rollins, a book about a secret cabal performing experiments on humans to find a DNA secret to immortality. Currently, I am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This is the true story of cancer cells taken from a woman and how they have continued to thrive since the 1950s. The cells have been used to further numerous scientific advancements.

Obviously, the books are different. One fiction. One non-fiction. However, the both center around something that humanity has often dreamed about – immortality. The scientists goal in the Rollins book may seem fantastical, but scientists in the Skloot book were looking at prolonging life as well.

Through this reading, I have been reminded about a conversation I had with some students. We were hiking through New Mexico when I asked what superpower they would pick if they could. I chose invisibility. One chose the ability to fly like Superman. However, another chose immortality. My first thought was how cool that would be, but then I started thinking about the problems.

1. When you get that power, you had better have a non-aging policy.

2. What happens when the Earth is destroyed? I suppose by that time people will be traveling to other planets.

3. How do you handle the death of loved ones over and over and over?

This brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Highlander – the story of Connor MacLeod, an immortal who must fight other immortals until only one is left. What’s the prize for the winner? He has immortality taken away. There is even a great song by Queen called “Who Wants to Live Forever“. And, what does that song say?

Who wants to live forever when love must die?

People have always been fascinated by immortality. After all, that is what religion is about. The Greeks and Romans worshipped immortals. Modern religions look for life after death. However, religion is not the only place immortality resides. Vampires have become a major theme in popular culture, and they hang around until somebody sticks a stake in them. Even zombies offer a glimpse at immortality, or an undead version of it.

So, why has humanity always had immortality on the brain? There’s probably more than one answer. First, people don’t want to stop being. No one wants to die even though it’s going to happen to everyone. It’s like a horror movie. YOU WILL NOT GET OUT ALIVE!!!

Second, we don’t want to miss anything. At least, this is what I think about. What will the world be like after we are gone? I call it “future history”. We have this urge to know what’s going to happen. What will the world be like in 2100? Will it be like The Jetson’s or like The Planet of the Apes? And, I use those examples for a reason. We like futuristic movies because it gives us a glimpse of what things might be like after we are gone. Some, like Star Trek, are about a hopeful future. Others, like Blade Runner, are about a desolate future. It doesn’t matter which because we just need to know what’s going to happen.

I feel bad for what people have missed. My grandfather was a huge fan of the University of Tennessee, and he passed away on a Saturday morning in 1995. That night his team, led by Peyton Manning, beat Alabama 41-14. I kept thinking how I wished he could have seen that. The next few seasons were great ones for Tennessee, and they eventually won the national championship in 1998. All I could think of was that he was missing it. I wish he could have seen it, and I wish I could see all of the games of the future.

But, those wishes are impossible because immortality is impossible. And, if it was possible would we really want it? I don’t know, but I do know that there is an old saying – Be careful what you wish for because it may come true.

Only the Rocks Live Forever

My dad and I just finished our multi-week project of watching Centennial, the 1970s miniseries covering the history of a fictional Colorado town. Lasting over 26 hours, the movie follows the lives of people who influenced the area and help found the town. Native Americans. Trappers. Mountain men. Pioneers. Farmers. Cowboys. The list goes on and on. All of the people you can think of from the history of the West are represented.

As we watched Centennial, several ideas swept through my mind. First was the fact that this was a well-made movie, and, although it was based on a work of fiction, accurately portrayed the history of the West better than just about any movie I have seen. It showed the lives of ordinary people and the complexities they faced. After all, they were living in a hard land that was taken from someone else.

Once my mind wrapped itself around the quality of the movie, the storyline began to remind me why I chose history as a profession. In the final episode, a historian shows up to research the town for an article. When he arrives in the village of 2,000 people, he wonders why he has been given the assignment of writing about a town he had never heard of with founders who only the locals remembered. Then, he began to hear the stories of the characters that we had been watching.

I suppose that I am not making sense, but the historian discovered that the little town of Centennial had an interesting history of regular people living regular lives. That’s what history is really about. Sometimes, we get caught up in the deeds of famous people and forget that history is made by everyone.

My next thought – actually, feeling – was a sense of sadness that hit me on several levels. Centennial takes the viewer through several generations of families, which means we are watching their lives and their deaths. We see them starting life with youthful exuberance and ending it after triumphs and tragedies. History isn’t just about the lives of people but also about their deaths.

As I watched the lives of these characters pass before my eyes, I also realized that my dad, like the older men in the movie, has already lived the majority of his life. He is the rock of our family and has accomplished more than I could ever imagine. Yet, he is getting more feeble as time passes, and there will be a time when he will pass away. Then, it will truly be up to my brother and me to carry on the beliefs and ideals of our family.

My dad and I have done a lot of things together. He took me to my first University of Tennessee football game when I was 6, and we have been going ever since. It’s just that he doesn’t make it to as many games as he used to. Together, we have traveled through all 50 states because he wanted me to see historic sites and natural wonders. I saw that watching this movie is another thing that we could do together. As we watched, he would have me pause it to tell him the real history of what the movie was portraying.

As the last episode ended, I was sad because a movie that I enjoyed and invested in had come to an end. I was sad because this experience with my dad had come to an end, and I fear the time when I will not be able to have more experiences with him. I was sad because the movie reminded me something that I had forgotten as I teach about people in the pages of history books. As a line in Centennial says, “Only the rocks live forever.”