Acrostics, Dune, and Stranger in a Strange Land

            My college years were like most peoples’ in many ways.  I entered brief, intense friendships which now have cooled; I skipped a lot of sleep; I discovered friends who still influence my life today; I met my life’s mate.

            A less-common circumstance involves my roommate, Curt Gebert.  I’ll always be thankful for that farm kid’s accepting frinedship for this long-haired, introverted loudmouth.

             I took this Polaroid snapshot on the afternoon of Sunday, August 24, 1975, in the room I shared with Curt.  Left-to-right are Curt, his wife-to-be Sherri Vasey, and OCU law student Ray McMahon.

            By the Spring semester of 1976, Sherri was falling behind on some schoolwork.  And so it happened that I perpetrated my only act of scholarly fraud:

            I wrote a paper for Sherri, about the concepts of water and religion in Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land.

            These are the paperback editions we read at the time, the mid-1970s.

            And here is the scandalous script.

At least Sherri got Honors Credit for it!

            You may ask, “Why is this worthy of an APRIL FOOLISHNESS mention?”

            Because as a bit of fun, I wrote the thing so that the first letters of each sentence spelled out something wonderful.

           That’s right, just for fun I made the first letters spell M-A-R-K  A-N-D  J-O-Y-C-E.

           And now you know the rest of the story.

            See you next Monday for more April Foolishness!