mmmmlxxxviii

Ethical Issues

what was her name? the professor?
i somehow have her confused with my
high school spanish teacher, but then
it comes to me, yes, no? falls-corbett?
i’m not certain, but that is the name
that comes to me. first name peg, i
think. funny that she has bill’s last
name. bill, my editor of many years,
i had the honor and good fortune of
taking his class at mit. back when i
worked there. and then i feel the
connection. he wrote an autobio
graphy called ‘futhering my edu
cation,’ did he not? yes. so this
class i took in undergraduate
school, at hendrix college in
conway, arkansas, ‘ethical
issues’ it was called, in which
we as a class covered around
five topics throughout the tri
mester (hendrix was an eclec
tic school, with three semesters,
or ‘trimesters’ per class year, at
least back in those days; i believe
i read somewhere recently that this
is no longer the case), five topics
laden with controversy, topics that
you fell on one side of the fence or
the other, inevitably? hopefully? we
were just college students. i mean,
perhaps my classmates had much
better developed values than i did,
but, as i like to say, i was a late
bloomer, and i doubt i was firmly
on either side of the fence on any
of the issues. i can only recall two
of them, which were abortion and
the death penalty. i do know we
each had to write an essay which
clearly stated our opinion, based
on any research we did on the
subject, a coherent argument
either for or against. it turns
out that i did have a pretty
solid opinion about abortion
rights, just a basic but solid
opinion, but on the death pen
alty, i did not. but using logic,
a method of deduction that i’d
inevitably dub ‘my religion,’ i
came to the conclusion that no
one person or people should have
the power to determine whether any
person, incarcerated or not, should be 

put to death. that i remember. i’m not
sure why i am writing about this class
this morning, and of course i’ve no idea
why it came to me shortly after i awoke,
the memory of sitting in that class during
what i think was my sophomore year of
undergraduate school in arkansas. but
thinking about that class now, i believe
it to be a turning point for me. a sign
ificant transformation occurred within
me that made room for what would be
come my malleable but ever-solidifying
values. those most important issues we
face as humans, or that i face, anyway.
i was a good student before that class,
as in my grades from mid-elementary
school through graduation and on into
my first year of college hovered around
near perfect. but as for my education,
i’d say that it began with that class.
it’s been a long and winding road
ever since, but one thing has re
mained true: with an over-arching
curiosity, i have been furthering my
education ever since then, ever since
tackling those primary and relevant
issues in which there are no hard and
fast correct answers in that class entitled
‘ethical issues,’ with professor falls-corbett.
this feels like a relevant subject to have
woken up thinking about in my refreshing
ly cool apartment this morning. i wonder
what the rest of the day will bring.