University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

As a young boy, I grew up in a small California town that had a one room school house, with one teacher and about twenty children in all eight grades. We did have a small local library though and since our town, Copperopolis, was only twelve miles from Angels Camp, the site of Mark Twain's famous story, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," we had a surprisingly large number of Mark Twain's works. As a young boy, I read many of his novels, but especially loved Huckleberry Finn. I identified with Huck's adventures, cheered on his often-transgressive behavior, and came to share his healthy distrust of authority and authority figures. And in Huck's relationship with Jim and Huck's decision that he would rather go to Hell than turn Jim in, I learned that people and our love for them are much more important than a narrowly conceived religion based on threats and intimidation.