Employee Cover Model of the Month: Keith Bergstrom
Name:
Keith Bergstrom
Nicknames:
Nicknames rarely stick to me. Our founder, Dr. Jim Scott, once said that I
should have a good nickname like “Snake,” but no one ever calls me that.
Job at
PH: General Manager
Book
Cover He’s Featured On: Great
American Poems
Favorite
Word(s)/Catch Phrases: “groovy”, “hip”, “boss,” “dig it.” I love archaic
slang. Nothing’s cooler than being so far out of date that you’re setting
trends.
Favorite
Book: On the Road by Kerouac or
maybe Catch-22,
or maybe something Shakespeare.
Ask me tomorrow and I’ll have another dozen books to say something about.
Favorite
Children’s Book: Lord
of the Rings – I know, it’s not a traditional children’s book, but
my mom read these books to me as a bedtime stories, so for me, they are.
Favorite Under-Taught Book: Njall Saga – The Icelandic Sagas
should be taught in schools. They’re the first major European works of prose
and they read as remarkably modern.
Favorite Author: Shakespeare, hands down. It looks like a
cop-out, but nothing beats a rainy day reading the bard.
Favorite Poem: Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
really captures a moment of selfish joy in work and reminds me to enjoy life.
Favorite
Movie Based on a Book: Ran –
Kurosawa’s epic re-vision of King
Lear set in Tokugawa Japan is one of the most visually
amazing films ever.
Favorite
Band/Music: In college, I went to a lot of Phish shows, and
they’re still the starting point for a lot of my musical tastes. These days, I
listen to more bluegrass, world music, and jazz than anything else.
Favorite
Food: Clark’s Teaberry Gum
Favorite PH Product: Growing Your
Vocabulary – our new middle-school vocabulary program is really
going to prove effective at teaching students how to love words, not just pass
tests.
Favorite Literary Quote:
Here’s
two from works mentioned above:
“But
yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.”
-Robert
Frost
And
“…the
only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never
yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow
roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see
the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
- Jack
Kerouac
One
Random Fact:
Once, I
rode horses through the remote mountains of western Mongolia in winter.
Thoughts about the Photo Shoot:
We spent ½ the afternoon riding
around in a “yellow” woods looking for a photogenic fork in the road and every
time we found one, we’d run into a problem with it. Eventually, we ended up
going back to the start and taking shots there. In the end, the weather was
great and I can’t imagine a much better day for getting out of the office.
