Sitting in her dorm room at Auburn University – Montgomery (AUM), Allison Wetherbee was depressed. She recalled, “My life was fertile ground for pessimism…I indulged in whining from time to time, sometimes for a week at a time.” She often bartered with God,...
When Diana Nyad was five years old, her father, who was of Greek descent, pointed to her name in the dictionary – Diana, a Greek goddess, and said to her, “Some day you will be a famous swimmer like Diana.” By the time Nyad discovered that her Greek namesake had...
On June 16, 1995, St. Louis Cardinals baseball team manager Joe Torre was at home when he got a call from team General Manager Walt Jocketty saying he was on his way to Torre’s house. Torre turned to his wife, Ali, and said, “I think we’re getting fired here.” After...
It began with increasing clumsiness, tripping on the stairs, and by the time Stephen Hawking went home from college for Christmas break in 1963, his parents noticed he occasionally slurred his words. The shocking diagnosis came a few months later. The twenty-one-year...
In October 1988, science fiction writer Thomas Disch was working as a contractor for Walt Disney Studios. While eating lunch one day, he envisioned the original idea for the movie The Lion King. He began writing the script, which he titled King of the Kalahari, and a...