Last Friday, Mer and I invited our friend and colleague Jordan over for supper. We went out to a nearby Applebee’s, and ate a pleasant meal together, and even had a student sighting as we left. I think students are always surprised to see teachers “in the wild.”

We headed back home for another installment of “History Night.” We try to get together with Jordan about once a month to watch an episode of Battlefield, a World War 2 documentary. We have been doing this on and off since last fall, and it is a good experience. Jordan teaches history, and his primary interest is in American history, so he is quite knowledgeable, especially about WW2 aircraft. This last History Night was on the Battle of Stalingrad, about which I knew nothing. It was a grim and desperate battle, and may have changed the course of the whole war by denying the Nazis access to oil fields in the southern Soviet Union. It was a very near thing. It was an educational evening for me, and a good social evening in general.