Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..What happened to me? I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places.

Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places.

I had also developed my own culture. Work. Over the years, I had taken labor as my companion and had moved everything else to the side.

Although the TV and radio work were nice supplements, the newspaper had been my lifeline, my oxygen; when I saw my stories in print each morning, I knew that, in at least one way, I was alive. I had grown used to thinking readers somehow needed my column. I was stunned at how easily things went on without me.

I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs.

I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline.

.. I thought about him now and then, the things he had taught me about 'being human' and 'relating to others;, but it was always in the distance, as if from another life.. .. The people who might have told me were long forgotten, their phone numbers buried in some packed-away box in the attic.

I wrote articles about rich athletes who, for the most part, could not care less about people like me. .. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me?