It is only natural that Allen Englebright spent a career teaching school. His mother and three brothers were also teachers, not to mention his daughter, and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews. Allen grew up on a farm in Wayne County, Illinois, and was educated at Eastern and Western Illinois Universities. Now retired, Big Al, as he is known to friends, interprets life—past, present, and future—through an historical lens and his own brand of humor in a weekly column called “Old Codger’s Humor” for The Prairie Press, a Paris, Illinois, newspaper.