In second grade there was a book of U.S. presidents at the front of the class. If you finished your assignment early you could pick up the book and read while the other students completed their work. For some reason I loved the book, and I decided to memorize the cause of death for every president. My teacher, instead of responding to my questions about typhoid with, "Nice little kids don't talk about death and diseases," helped me look up more information in the encyclopedia.

Shout out to Mrs. Capps for encouraging me to dive deeper into the history of human health and disease. You were the best.