I am reading a letter from Hunter Gray. Forty-five years ago, he was known as Professor John R. Salter, Jr.
"About 7 years ago," Hunter wrote, "the right side of my face began to hurt significantly and intermittently, swell slightly, then recede. Then in May of 2003, during the marathon speaking trip my wife and I took, I suddenly felt something very strange 'way up in the upper right inside of my mouth.
"We stopped hurriedly at an Interstate rest stop, and I looked at my open mouth in the bathroom mirror. Something was protruding from the roof of my mouth. I fished it out. It was a large, thin, molded piece of bone-gray plastic, incised with blood-vessel and bone indentations. It was very old, crumbled when I broke it.
"I knew just what it was. Since then, more pieces have come. The pain and the swelling are gone. Something is now healed; something else is no longer needed. Memories remain, cut into the inside of my skull.
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