The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier

Fog. Chill in the air. Faint moonglow. Drops of condensed mist falling from barren tree branches like rain. Quiet. While walking in this envelope of dark and silent solitude, I was thinking about Yemenja and how sharing my story of her impact on me prompted others to share equally magnificant and beautiful stories of students [...]

On the dark, panelled wall in my office, above my computer desk, floats an elongated, 15 X 3 inch, bleached, pine, hand- carved primitive African “kuumba” mask. It has been there since I found it one August, 1994, morning leaning against my office door. It had been wrapped simply in a cut-up grocery store paper [...]

I came in this morning from my walk feeling very blue even though I walked only half my five mile route. My walking grubbies are Carolina blue, my gloved hands were blue, my covered ears were blue, my nose was blue, the stuff that hung from my tearing eyes and dripping nose was blue ice, [...]

I went out late today. It’s Saturday and I am allowed. I was prepared for a hard walk. For the last two weeks, I’ve been racked with a bad head cold that has kept me off the streets. Today’s depressing overcast, misty drizzle, and penetrating chill in the air that were heralding the cold hurtling [...]

As a result of being embroiled in a heated discussion on some lists that unexpectedly erupted around my last Random Thought, it occured to me that there has been a plague raging somewhat unchecked throughout my and other campuses of higher education–and throughout other levels of education as well–to which regrettably all too few professors [...]