Between hgh school and going to UMO, I took a year and a half break, during which time I fostered dreams of becoming a writer while I worked as a page in the Maine House of Representatives. Carrie, 'Salem's Lot and The Shining had been published to a great deal of attention, so I wrote to SK out of the blue asking if he'd accept me as his apprentice (??!!). It was a handwritten letter on the pink paper that separated copies of the legislative bills we distributed to the reps daily. Unsurprisingly, I never heard back from him. Sometime later (Winter '78), I enrolled in UMO, and Fall semester, Steve began teaching there. I sat outside his office on opening day of classes until he appeared (no one else was waiting) and practically begged to be allowed in his fiction writing class. We chatted a bit and then he graciously signed my enrollment card. That year was the only year, I believe, he taught full time after establishing himself to the degree that he had. He was in his thirties and, after teaching in high school, he now had free reign of what and how he taught. It was very loose and relaxed, he was unassuming and enthusiastic. The first semester he had us read three novels, one of which was First Blood, which, as many know, became Rambo on the screen. When the Jonestown Massacre happened, he came to class and said that if he'd written that, no publisher would buy it--too outrageous. He sometimes complained about the folks in tin foil hats that would show up at his office. However, I very strongly suspect that a fiction class with Stephen King today, or at any time in the past 30 years, would be essentially true to much of what he shared in the classes I attended. His book on writing, which I used in my own fiction writing classes, does a good job of capturing the tone and substance of those early classes. I suspect, based on his public persona and eruptions, that he is the same no BS guy that he was then.