{"product_id":"9781462833481","title":"Before I Go: My First Fifty-Six Trips Around The Sun","description":"ONE SUMMER DAY in about the year 1961, my father told me that I would never amount to a shit because I hadn't finished mowing the lawn.  Forty years later, my abbreviated biography appeared in the 2000 edition of Who's Who in America.  I wonder what my dad would have thought about that had he lived to witness it.  I still don't enjoy mowing the lawn, and I still don't know if he was right or wrong in his prediction.  \u003cbr\u003eHow does one evaluate a life after all?  I am, as a human being, completing my fifty-sixth  journey about our Sun.  I approach what Confucius called \"the time of obedient ears,\" when many of the lusts have abated but robust health yet obtains.  \u003cbr\u003eAlong the way, I have  sought to open the minds of a few thousand students, disappointed a handful of relatives, married one couple, published about a hundred pieces of writing, saved at least one life, belonged to three labor unions, loved about twenty women, fathered one child, delivered baked goods door-to-door, attempted to meld quantum physics with theology, and helped a man my age to urinate as he lay near death  having but half the face with which he was born.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Xlibris Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47129492127984,"sku":"9781462833481","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781462833481_p0.jpg?v=1763679003","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781462833481","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}