In the seventeenth century, several aristocratic French women popularized the idea of like-minded people gathering in a comfortable setting and discussing an announced topic over a glass of wine. Your tuition will not cover the wine, but knowing OLLI students as I do, I feel sure we can match the intellectual fellowship of that French crowd. To that end, I’ll email a short essay on each upcoming topic ranging from truth to beauty to prime the pump. In class, we’ll see what if anything the essay has stirred up. To aid the stirring, I’ll bring a photocopied handout of anecdotes (and anti-dotes), poems (and a few pomes), cartoons (and a few jokes), quotations, etc. and see where they lead us. These ten intellectual coffeehouse, pea-vining journeys promise to be enjoyable and instructive as they jog our collective memory bank. Note well: these are not canned lectures but seminars among equals, so be prepared to chat. In short, each OLLI salon promises to be a fordable river with real depth.

Skip Eisiminger is retired from the Clemson University English Department, where he taught History of the Language, Word Study, American Literature, interdisciplinary humanities, and creative writing for 42 years. He continues to publish in the South Carolina Review, Weekly Hubris, and KYSO Flash. He is the author of Anecdotes and Antidotes (Serving House Press, 2019).