Through a Glass, Darkly

Last week I got fantastic news. Mike was telling me something while I was checking my email, and I missed everything he said because I was standing there with my mouth wide open. I might possibly have squealed, and I am not really a squealer. What was this fantastic news in my inbox? My high school librarian, the one who coached my Quiz Bowl team and who made me want to be a librarian myself, is going to be on Jeopardy! JEOPARDY! There go the capital letters again! Her show(s . . . let’s be optimistic!) will be filmed at the end of this month. Do you know how much we used to talk about Jeopardy! at Quiz Bowl practice? I will tell you! A lot! Clever teenagers that we were, we always threatened to answer Quiz Bowl questions in the form of a question. (Apparently, before my time, one guy actually did phrase his answer in the form of a question. In an actual match. But he didn’t do it on purpose. It just came out that way. Jeopardy! geeks unite!) In the email that she sent to a bunch of us old Quiz Bowl members, she thanked us for helping her learn stuff. I don’t know what I could possibly have taught her, but I know that she taught me a lot, from how to identify an Emily Dickinson poem and how to remember that W.B. Yeats was Irish to how to handle the perils of the high school social scene and what it looks like to authentically live out your faith by caring for people.

So, let’s review. I just told you that I got all excited and squealy about my former librarian being on Jeopardy! Could I BE any more of a nerd?