'Have you done your homework' my mother would ask. 'I'll do it later.' 'You will do it now, young man. I don't want you winding up on the third shift at Flagg-Utica.' Flagg-Utica was a local textile plant. Somehow, I never could figure how failing to read three chapters in my geography book about the various sorts of vegetation to be found in a tropical rain forest had anything to do with facing a life as a mill hand. But with enough guilt and fear as catalysts, you can read anything, even geography books and Deuteronomy.