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A dying professor, and his …

grateful students. Colby College excerpts some emails he received from them in his last days. Here’s one:

I remember making a passing comment about [job] worries to you after class one day. Little did I know that, later that day, my dorm room phone would ring and you would be on the other end.

“Kwedor? Bassett here.” (As if that voice could belong to anyone else!) We had been reading The Old Man and the Sea, and … you told me that the message that I should take from that book was simple: do what you want to do, do what makes you happy. Don’t be like Manolin, doing only what makes others happy; he only regretted that decision later.

That was the first time anyone had so bluntly told me that I could control my own fate, that even if my first job after Colby wasn’t glamorous or prestigious, if I was happy then it was a good decision.

Margaret Soltan, January 14, 2011 1:08PM
Posted in: professors

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5 Responses to “A dying professor, and his …”

  1. What I’m Aiming For… | Professor Mondo Says:

    […] of it, there are still compensations, and still things for which to strive. And that brings me to a link I found at University Diaries, which tells of Charlie Bassett, an American Lit professor at Colby College. Bassett was dying of […]

  2. Rita Says:

    this is lovely.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Rita: Thanks. Yes.

  4. Tony Grafton Says:

    This reminds me, for all the differences, of your A Man in Full post after Virginia Tech. There are greats in this strange world we work in, and it’s always good to cherish them.

    Thanks.

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    You’re very welcome, Tony.

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