Reply #19: I once had a fellow faculty member

[Lydia Leftcoast]

whose office was right off a seminar room-style classroom where I normally taught an afternoon class.

One day, the weather was so beautiful that I gave in to the students' pleas to have class outside.

About 15 minutes before the end of the class, we went back inside to take the quiz scheduled for the day.

There was my colleague, playing with a toy farm on the conference table: little barn, little animals, little machinery, and squares of construction paper representing the pastures and pens.

When he saw us coming in, he hurriedly put the toy stuff into a cardboard box and retreated into his office, but not before handing me a toy sheep.

I never asked him about it. He seemed embarrassed enough already.