Opening paragraphs.........

    "When I was twelve I thought that when the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a headline about the 'struggle for control of the West Bank' it meant the other side of the Mississippi River.  I thought that my shiny gold velour pants actually looked good.  I kept a giant sack of Nabisco Chocolate Chip cookies under my bed so that they might be available in an emergency - a flood, say, or a hurricane - that made it harder to get to the grocery store.  From the safe distance of forty-three, 'twelve' looks less an age than a disease, and, for the most part, I've been able to forget all about it - not the events and the people, but the feelings that gave them meaning.  But there are exceptions.  A few people, and a few experiences, simply refuse to be trivialized by time.  There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever.  I'd once has such a teacher.  His name was Billy Fitzgerald, but everybody just called him Coach Fitz."

-Michael Lewis, Coach