I had an Ideas problem. Not too few, but too many. I was plagued by them. More of an infestation, really. I needed to get them out of my hair. Literally.

In the year 1858, a young Oliver Booth, brother of John Wilkes, saved the son of future president Abraham Lincoln from being crushed between two railway cars.

I’m sure you’ve noticed me around the halls. I know you’re curious. I am, too. You’re funny, and charming, and you’re smart (which is how I know we’ll really click). You have a lot of fantastic qualities you could bring, if you were interested, to someone like me: Fiction Fanatix, the MSU bimonthly student book club.

I won’t hold no truck with any of this rude bunch, these kids today. No, I may not keep up with technology or current events or the supreme edicts of the inhuman god-emperors, but I stand by the idea that people of my generation were just plain more courteous, and had a modicum of common sense, to boot, which you won’t find one whit of in today’s crowd, I’ll have you know.

Mr. Stevenson must have had a first name, but, if so, his teachers didn’t know it. “Is that so, Stevenson?” they inquired. “Speak up, Stevenson, so that the whole class can hear you.” Mr. Stevenson’s parents probably knew his first name at one point, but may have forgotten. His friends didn’t know it, for the same reason that unicorns don’t know the capital of North Dakota.