It was a crisp May morning in a small pastorium of a small rural community called Buck Grove, Kentucky. I had been living, eating, sleeping, and breathing with a document called a dissertation. I had read from hundreds of books, articles, and journals in English, French, and German. Hardly a day went by for three years that I did not work on this thesis.

It was midnight on that May morning, and I wasn't just tired, I was, as they used to say in the country, "all tuckered out." I started to put my pen down when my eye caught something and I froze. In my concentration and weariness I had not noticed that what had been a box of several hundred note cards had now dwindled to just 25 to 30. It hit me like a hammer: I am almost done.

After almost three years I could see a light at the end of t…