1998 (Volume 10)

 

We moved away from our region in this issue, and a theme of our connectedness to other worlds emerged. Our center spread takes us "East of Spink" with Ron Johns. Spink, South Dakota, where Johns lives, doesn't even have a post office, yet his photos show our connections to worlds far away from the local. We are always east or west or north or south of something. We are on the same planet; it's just a matter of direction — nothing more or less.

 

In "Inkpaduta Revisited" Sarah A. Becker recalls visiting the Abbie Gardner cabin as a girl. Now she reexamines the historical event. She doesn't sugar coat the raid but she gives a more truthful and accurate look at what made Inkpaduta attack, kill and take captives.

 

In "Fitting the Bill," Mary K. Corbin opens her essay with an anecdote about the Scotland Yard officer who studies the perfect bill in order to detect the counterfeit ones. She says, "Much like the chief officer of Scotland Yard, we must study the literature of each nation ... so that we can preserve and publish the Shakespeares and the Cervantes of our own day."

 

Jeanne Emmons' essay, "Alien Intelligences: College Education as Wonder," was first given at Briar Cliff's Convocation on Sept. 19, 1997. Emmons says, "A college education is a hotbed of alien activity, a breeding ground for the bizarre ... If she is lucky, she will be sitting in the library, late one night, reading an assignment for class, and she will be abducted ... Education is to be kidnapped and operated upon by alien beings."

 

We hope all of you are joyfully abducted to other worlds as you read the pages of our 10-year anniversary issue.