The latter flows better.

Still thinking about your first question. I think paragraphs #2 and #3 impart important information, and I can't see you losing too much from them.

Question 1: I had my say already, but I like the changes so far.

Question 2: I prefer the second.

I didn't think about present tense, but you might be right, Kristin.

As for this:

Also, I want to get rid of "who knows what" and substitute something better.

what about "memories, hopes, fears" or something like that?

I like the second choice for the second question, although not having read the essay I'm not sure what "the blankness" is.

The latter flows better.

Ah, see, I disagree. You don't have many futures; you have one future. What you have in your one future are many possibilities.

Shortening up those three paragraphs for conciseness definitely has merit. I need to think about it for a little bit, though.

One last Time Passing drabble.

When I met it, it was a community center, trying to keep a heartbeat going in the hundred-year-old school complex. The center closed; dark things happened in the empty buildings. The Satanic temple was almost laughable in the light of day, except for what was left of the pigeons.

City councilmen, developers all, wanted it torn down, wanted waivers on the Historical Register listing. We fought it, not wanting another blockfull of student ghettos. Fifteen years we waited, expecting any night to see firetrucks where yet another "mysterious" fire had broken out.

We voted, and won. We'd get a new library--if we could raise all the money. We raised the money, despite the changing deadlines. We waited for firetrucks; we accepted the compromise of reconstruction over restoration.

The councilmen at the dedication congratulated themselves on their support of the project. We ignored them. We won.

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Kristin, here's my take on your questions.

There were as many possibilities for the blankness as there could have been future paths for his life.

"The possibilities for the blankness were as many as for the paths his future could have taken"? You can reword it, and I'd step away from "There were" to start the sentence.

Even my most reluctant students got excited by it and stuffed their envelopes full of who knows what, and since my second year of teaching I’d had a new batch to send out every January.

Even my most reluctant students were excited, inspired, and since my second year of teaching I'd had a new batch of envelopes to send out every January.

The "stuffing full of" is a nice image, but it's not necessary for the meaning of the sentence or the idea. My wording is just a clumsy example of rewording. Yours will be better.

Connie, I love your reclamation story. And the library is beautiful!

Now I'm wallowing in nostalgia about that old house. I put up some pictures here.

dcp, you totally did not have too much hair for 1974. For 1974, you practically had a crew cut. Where was the swoop of hair over one eye, I ask ya?

Signed,
I was 7 Then

Thanks everyone. I'm going to ponder.

Man, I don't even remember haircuts in 1974, except on male rockers.

Off to take daughter to airport (there aint enough coffee on earth), but I wanted to post a nice review from the Chicago Tribune. This was Dick Adler, their mystery and thriller reviewer:

A nice review, by Dick Adler (the Chicago Trib's reviwer of mysteries and thrillers):

The Famous Flower of Serving Men

By Deborah Grabien

Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Minotaur, $22.95

The thing I like best about Deborah Grabien's interesting, beautifully researched and detailed books featuring house restorer and folk musician Ringan Laine and his life partner, theatrical producer Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes, is the way they make old British ballads so important a part of the story. As she did in "The Weaver and the Factory Maid," Grabien shows us how the songs crept into people's lives and souls, affecting them in ways that today's music, for all its variety and volume, just can't match.

Even the ghost-story aspect of the narrative--the presence of the spirit of a rather spiteful actress in the London theater Wintercraft-Hawkes has inherited and Laine is about to turn into a new home for her company--isn't as intrusive as it was in Grabien's first book. As Laine and Wintercraft-Hawkes try to solve the crime that is keeping the ghost's presence active, most readers will be so caught up in the wonderful sights and sounds that they won't be spooked.

Also, Bev, not sure about using the word "inspired" in there; Kristin has no way of knowing that most of them were inspired. Besides, it's really difficult to inspire a class full of teenagers; inspiration is a bolt from the blue. "Intrigued" might be a better word.