September 29, 2017 — I was surrounded by hordes of 19-year-olds dressed in bright orange and white. Their youth was brazen with their tan legs and fresh faces, and they spoke in accents that placed them far below the Mason-Dixon. I stroked the scraggily beard on my pale, craggy face, feeling my age, and hunkered deeper into my dark cardigan. I just wanted to find a centaur skeleton.
I was braving the sunny campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, slipping through alleys and over walking bridges trying to find the shortest distance between my parking garage and the John C. Hodges Library. Because it had a centaur skeleton. Did I mention that?
