On my desk is the watch my father wore when he died. That was nearly fifteen years ago. Next to it is a rock one of my high school students picked out of Cass Lake. She stopped on her way past because she remembered that I went there during summers and she wanted me to have a sign of it during the school year. On it she painted "Cass Lake 1986." I put it on my desk at the high school. Some young humorist promptly scraped off the "C." It remained on that desk until I left high school teaching. "ass Lake" is now on my present desk, nineteen years later.

As I move about my day, I carry a coffee mug given me by a graduate student only a few years ago. It is next to another one, blue-enameled, given me by one of the Heikkila girls in 1981. I don't use that one much any more, as it isn't microwave safe, though I do fill it occasionally when feeling nostalgic about the girl who looked at me one day in disbelief while we were talking about a poem and said "I get it!" Her expression that moment is etched in my memory at least as solidly as the feeling of the enameled mug.

When in need of an energy surge I reach into a vase of peppermints--a particular weakness--provided and periodically refilled by a dear student and now colleague. When I need a pen, I reach into an antique pencil box given me by another student and prospective teacher only a few years ago. When she gave it to me, she didn't want to give me an empty box, so she filled it with nuts. The nuts are long gone, but the old box serves it purpose once again.

These are refillings, and remindings, of a long and satisfying career.