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62 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z My 72nd birthday with my son, Joshua. sights and our expository writing skills. Dr. Goldberg informed us that the margins could not exceed two inches on the top, one inch on the bottom, and one inch on the right and left sides of each page. He also told us that he would not read any content that stretched beyond the prescribed limits. Grades for the essays would range from a minus (fail) to a check (pass) to a plus (superior). I received a minus on the first essay and to this day—fifty- five-years later—I remember Dr. Goldberg’s precise comments: “This is an incredibly bad paper. Badly written and badly conceived. In fact, you don’t say anything of value until the very last sentence, and even that is of dubious quality.” I was devastated. I had attended a prestigious private school for eight- years, and I had scored in the 96th percentile on the English section of the National Merit Scholarship exam. I figured I knew how to write. It was clear that Dr. Goldberg thought otherwise. I also received a minus on the next assignment that I submitted three weeks later.When I spoke to Dr. Goldberg after class, he advised me to drop the course. He told me the two-week limit for withdraw- ing from the class had already ex- pired but that he could pull some strings in the registrar’s office if I so desired. He also told me that if I wanted, he would be willing to work with me on improving my writing skills. I immediately chose this alternative. We met in his of- fice on several occasions, and he and I would meticulously identify the syntactical and expressive lan- guage flaws that littered the two es- says that I had submitted. His cri- tique was brutal but just. On the third and final essay of the quarter, I received a check. I also received a check on the final exam and a C- in the course. From that point on, I never received a grade G R E E N E below A or A- on a paper in any course at Antioch or later in graduate school at Stanford, where I was sub- sequently required to take the GRE and received a score in the 96th per- centile on the English section. I thank my lucky stars that Milton Goldberg offered to help me when I was seventeen years old, and that I chose to accept his help.That decision made all the difference in the subsequent direction of my life.