“Go home and write anything that comes to your mind. Don’t stop. Write for ten minutes or till you’ve filled a whole page.”

Ken Macrorie said this just in time, as far as I’m concerned.

The date was May 5, 1964. I was still in high school, a month shy of graduation. That fall I’d be going off to Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, 120 miles from suburban Detroit where I grew up. I had never heard of Ken Macrorie, had no idea he was a member of the English Department who taught classes called freshman comp and advanced writing.

I had no idea the man who would become my mentor, lifelong friend, coach and truth-telling goad — my best teacher — had just had the biggest breakthrough of his career, and my destiny in two years was to have him change my life as a consequence of that breakthrough. I was going to Western on a hunch, an ironic shrug. I almost joined the Army — I was seeking, I think, some sort of reality shock therapy. I was sick of school, bored, confused, desperately looking for something I couldn’t even begin to name.