A glimpse of a memory from forty-plus years ago: In the late Fifties, I had a friend who was teaching at Yale. He played guitar and used to go to the Yale Hoots. I believe his name was George Lewis but I am not sure. He was a geographer and that is what he taught. He told me that when he'd a student at the University of Chicago, one night Burl Ives tried to convince him of the positive values of Communism. My long-ago friend told the story, not as a narrow escape from "a fate worse than death". His own politics were certainly left of center. It ewas a story told only because if was about Burl Ives and was mildly interesting.

He had a better story, though. After a failed marriage and a bitter divorce, he had gone to do some field work in Borneo. Having lived in the bush for a couple of months, he was pleased to learn that there was a young white woman in a village downriver. He decided to make a visit. With a boatman he headed the thirty rugged miles downstream through some tough rapids until he came to his goal. After all of that, you can imagine how surprised he was to find that the anthropologist who had come to the downstream village was his ex-wife.

Sourdough

Allan S.: Does any of this sound familiar?