When I first started working for the Evergreen, I was a fresh-faced first year with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. The world was my oyster, by golly, and I was going to milk it for every pearl...

When I was a kid, my dad had a saying that I only found out later he cribbed from George Costanza’s father: “Serenity now!” He’d pull this one out intermittently and in moments of great stress,...