I have been building all my life: treehouses, sailboats, motorboats. My brothers and I even made a hang glider out of an old army surplus parachute and bamboo we got from a carpet shop. I was the only one who actually got airborne, being towed behind a car – we weren’t ready to jump off a cliff with it. I’ve also always loved history – my mother was a history major at Oxford. So when it came time to pick a vocation, it was a tough choice between construction and teaching history.

As it turns out, I now do both.