a "little" history

as i sit in the "fishbowl" on the 17th floor of the pot (patterson office tower), i am looking forward to the time i get to spend today with richard and irene brown. they are on campus giving a talk about their latest book, the hanging of ephraim wheeler. a wonderful example of microhistory, the hanging of ephraim wheeler tells the story of a massachusetts farmer convicted of rape and incest--a crime that ended with the public spectacle of his hanging.
i was looking forward to this talk even before being asked to join the browns for lunch at dudley's on the department's dollar (another wonderful thing about state university education). while i have never met richard brown, i had quite a lengthy conversation with him some four years ago as i was in the application process for phd programs. actually i was in the waiting-for-the-big-or-little-envelope stage of the application process. anyway, i had applied to uconn (mainly because my friend ken minkema of the jonathan edwards center at yale university earned his phd there, working with brown). out of the blue, professor brown called and talked with me as he tried to fit me in with what his department needed and offered. in the end, i ended up at uk. but i really appreciated and was encouraged by the time he spent on the phone with me. he is a good historian. and, by all counts, a good man.