It’s nearly summer and that means: time to read trashy novels on the beach. One of the down sides (was there an up???) to Grad school was that the amount of reading I had to do left me with little time or energy for reading anything else. By the time summer would roll around, the only things I felt like looking at were magazines. I mean this literally, looking. Because I don’t think I read a bit of print beyond pictures all the summers I was in school. I was just too tired to think! When each class was demanding hundreds of pages of text to be read each week, the very thought of reading for pleasure was unimaginable.

Of course, there was that one semester where I read nothing but advanced reader copies of novels in order to avoid reading the required subject matter for a certain class I was taking. I found the reading for that class as tedious as I found the professor—my theory was, the less time I spent actually doing the work the saner I’d become. It worked. Of course, it was my first B in Grad school.

Funny story that B—I was destined for it. The summer before, I was working in the campus bookstore when this professor paid us a call. Business was slow and my boss totally encouraged her staff to read when there was nothing else to do. So, there I was, propped behind the counter with an advanced reader copy of The Good Men by Charmaine Craig. Now, you should know this professor had a reputation. While I’d never met him in person, he was kinda hard to miss on campus. Students either loved him or, uh, didn’t. (Most other professors polled were less enthusiastic. They either found him insufferable or they proffered a “no comment”.) He was famous for having “favorites” and reducing his non-preferred students to tears.

So, in he walks, and without even saying hello he looks at the book I’m holding and says, “Huh, must be a chick-book about hating men.” Or some such nonsense suggesting that the book wasn’t “pro-man”. Uh… it’s a book about heresy. A work of historical fiction. Now, to his credit, he couldn’t have known what the book was about, because it was an advance reader copy—the book hadn’t been published yet! But, seriously, wouldn’t you take offense to such a presumption?

No, probably not. You, dear readers, are wise and patient and not prone to sticking your foot in your mouth. Me? Well, that was when, without missing a beat, I made the biggest mistake I could and said, “Uh, clearly you’re not a church historian.” Oops. My bad. How was I to know that he had a running feud with the Church History Department?

My boss, who had heard the whole exchange, had a good laugh at my expense and clued me into the departmental politicking. Oh, joy. At the time, I was a wee bit obsessive about “pointy” grades and she knew it. “There goes my ‘A’,” I thought. And I was right.

Much more went into my getting a B; he and I came from different theological camps. Needless to say, being different wasn’t rewarded at the particular seminary I attended. By the time the course came to an end, we’d pretty much squared off as enemies. He blatantly came after me in class and in my papers—so much so, I was often asked why I didn’t report him. Truth is, as appalling as it was, I expected it! Remember, I’d had advance warning the summer before when I discovered the true meaning of “Good Men”. When grades were issued he made a point of telling me how overjoyed he was to be giving me a B. Of course, it wasn’t the first B in my education, and it wouldn’t be my last! I can’t recall if I actually said this or just thought it, but I do remember the sentiment I had when he gloated about my grade, “I’ve been given B’s by better men!”