Abstract

With decades of newspaper reporting behind him, the author took a mid-life pivot to teaching that started as a high school substitute. He describes how a student's question about life in the eighties triggers a flashback to a day that gave his life meaning and direction after a chance encounter with a group of troublemakers. They offer him a nonfiction book about a band that seemed like they were from another world. As a result, the author grew wiser that day and decided he would try to change the world as a journalist, writing about people and places that needed discovery. The story proves inspiration can come from the most unlikely place— and all it takes is one book or one song for life to change course.

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