avowed cocaine user, and might be
looked at askance by the high-school
boards of today.
And as a woman, wouldn’t I be
expected to produce an admirable
female? Who would do? There were
a lot of woman writers I could have
proposed—Emily Brontë, Jane Austen,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning—but why
wish a scribbler’s fate upon the young?
I ducked the question by saying, not
inaccurately, that I wasn’t much good
at heroes.
The other questions for Wisdom
Keepers were equally perilous. “What
do you mean by leadership?” provided
an opportunity for snide jokes about
politicians, but (believing as I do that
everyone should vote) I didn’t want to
encourage cynicism. To “What motto
or belief guides you through the tough
times?,” Gone With the Wind’s “Tomor-
row is another day” seemed barely suf-
ficient. “If you want to make God laugh,
tell him your plans,” though succinct,
is not a thing the young need to be told:
they’ll discover it all too soon.
Your grandfather was right: character
does matter.
One of the things Dr. Joe and I have
in common is a love of the Arctic. Being in that vast expanse of land and
sea above the tree line is like looking
at the bones of the world. You know
how small you are, how easily snuffed
At 20 you know
everything. At 70
you’re not so sure.
out—and also how important your
life-support systems are, other people
among them.
I’d traveled in the Arctic a number
of times, though not nearly as many as
Dr. Joe. I suspect that the roots of his
Wisdom Keepers project lie there, with
the Inuit—who happen to possess so
many of the qualities Dr. Joe prizes
among those who live and work at the
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