The Runner’s Anxiety

by Arthur Saltzman

Issue No. 109 ~ June, 2006

Like the fellow who makes a living selling women's lingerie, an English professor must make a conscious effort to ensure that the pleasures that inspired him to choose his career do not decline into mere duties. Woe to the teacher who discovers that the novels and poems that once aroused his passions now wait for him like so much laundry to be folded. For the chief feature of recreation is that it is not required -- a mandatory vacation from work is a lay-off by that or any other name.