This is the tree, where I camped out on a sunny Saturday afternoon on a blanket while in college. 
Mirror lake was less than 500 feet away, where there was a reggae concert that I ignored. I had a paper to write — what difference did it make if it was Saturday? That means no classes to interrupt my writing time. While my friends sat by the lake, I couldn’t think of any other logical way to spend a Saturday — a break without classes. 
This was before laptops.
I wrote the paper, on the theories of Hugh Blair, and it won an award, and a $500 stipend came with it. Who knew that some 20 years later, I would stand by this very tree with my sons.
Whenever I have a fourth grader, it’s Buckeye Bonanza time.
The kids spend a couple of months at school learning about economics and make Buckeye products to sell during Michigan week.
Necklaces, mittens, scarves…
They walk around campus, play Carmen Ohio on their recorders
in the Ohio Union.
They walk through my past, with signs and billboards selling their products to other students. During Michigan week. 
All the money goes straight to the Stefanie Spielman Breast Cancer fund. It’s kind of surreal to stand here with these kids… and try to remember who I was then, to see if there was any clue that I might be doing this someday — with these mysteries… these children.
