In 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,' protagonist Winston Smith works at a propaganda department for the state called the 'Ministry of Truth,' where inconvenient news can be discarded down a 'memory hole.' Orwell was fixated on the idea that under certain governments, the past can be altered or documents rewritten.

Buckhannon, population 5,639, is a deeply conservative town and long has been. While coal is its past, oil and gas are its likely future. It's a town where guns are sold at yard sales, where Pentecostal churches are nearly as common as restaurants, and where distrust of Hillary Clinton is visceral and deep-seated.

Leftist, anti-fascist activists known as Antifa, whose stated goals are to stamp out racism, white supremacy and authoritarianism, sometimes do use violence.

Americans don't know the Constitution. More than half of those surveyed can't name any of the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. Only a quarter can name all three branches of government.

Who am I? I'm a man, an American, a father, a teacher, but most of all, I am a person who knows how the arts can change lives, because they transformed mine. I was a dancer.

Books change us. Books save us. I know this because it happened to me. Books saved me. So, I do believe through stories we can learn to change, we can learn to empathize and be more connected with the universe and with humanity.

My older brother played professionally in Europe. My other older brother went to UConn on scholarship, finished his education in political science, then he went on and played in Europe for years. My other brother played in Europe.

The end of reading is not more books but more life.