Americans are working people. We chanced on this land as explorers and claimed it as settlers. In the unbroken land of the new world, the explorers’ dreams of gold demanded pursuit as strenuous as the settlers’ ambition of a place to call their own. We’re still at it. Work brings us our livelihood, supports our families, endows our futures, defines our identities.

Few coaches in major-college football have had the success Ken Niumatololo has had in his first six years as head coach of Navy’s Midshipmen.     Since taking over in 2008 from former head coach Paul Johnson, Niumatololo has piled up 49 wins. That’s more wins than any other coach in Academy history has accumulated in his first six seasons. It puts him on the brink of history this season as Navy’s all-time winningest coach.

    In Their Own Words was my first weekly column. It was a blast for me, and I hope you were inspired by our neighbors. We sure met some characters, didn’t we? The project reminded me that each of us has a story. A beautiful story. We just need someone to listen. That’s what In Their Own Words did. Thank you for listening.

    Late August unites us in thoughts of school days — days past and days upcoming.     Cooler evenings with earlier sunsets adjust our biological clocks ever so slightly. Thoughts of school days shared with friends and classmates crowd our memories. It’s time for hair cuts and shopping for new clothes and shoes.

    Last year kindergartener Lily Mobley told Bay Weekly she was “excited to make new friends” at her new school, South Shore Elementary in Crownsville.     She did.     Now starting first grade, Mobley says she “can’t wait to see her friends from last year and make new ones.”

    I return to college as a sophomore even more excited than last year, for my high hopes for my first year at Saint Mike’s were exceeded.     Declaring to go to Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, propelled me from March to August. Closer to move-in day, however, doubt and fear crept in. Had I made the right decision? I had dreamed of going to school in a major city like New York or Boston. Now I was about to make a nine-hour journey to Vermont, where there are more cows than people.

    Deciding to continue college at age 50 brought me an education beyond ideas and theories. I had to figure out how to be an adult student — plus face the inescapable truth that I, middle-aged in a room of 30-year-olds, had plenty to learn.     I understood quickly that my brain would survive intact. Yet culturally I was outpaced. My teenage college memories did not include shared projects, grades and online methodology. By profession my title was Technology Trainer, but I had never used technology for student group work.

My first day of teaching! I had confidence in myself, even if this was a third of the way around the world. Gaziantep, Turkey, my Peace Corps site in 1966, is now recognized as a major city and a base for reporters covering the wars in Iraq and Syria. But then it was seen by my fellow volunteers as an outpost in Eastern Turkey, akin to our Wild West in the 1800s.

    As my summer wraps up, I am slowly preparing for seventh grade at Severn School. I’m pretty excited for school to start, and I’m not the least bit nervous. But there are a couple of changes this year. First, our middle school is under construction.     Second, Mr. Daniel Keller, my former sixth-grade English teacher, was promoted to head of the middle school. I knew what he was like as a teacher, but what would he be like as the new principal?

    For the 31st time in his post-retirement second act as a substitute teacher, Billy Keyes will report for duty August 25 at South River High School.     “I’m going in the first day,” says Keyes, who at age 93 is the oldest active substitute teacher in Anne Arundel County, and likely on this planet.