Writers collect colorful or quirky bits of language, building up a midden of words in their minds the way pack rats gather heaps of shiny objects.

On a rainy morning some years ago, I visited Edward Hoagland, a master of the essay, at his home on Wheeler Mountain in northern Vermont. Ted lived there during the summer, in a robin’s-egg-blue cabin without electricity or phone. He did his writing on two manual typewriters, one for work aimed at publication, the other for his journal. When he greeted me at the door, he offered me a towel to dry my head, lest I catch a chill. I laughed and told him the last person who worried about my catching a chill was my mother, who used to warn me about exposing the “treacherous triangle” at the base of my neck in cold weather. Ted promptly sat at the typewriter reserved for his journal and recorded the phrase, hunting and pecking on the keys, then added my name to say who had given him the curious expression.

Crotchety and brilliant both on and off the page, Ted Hoagland is one of the writers who demonstrated for me the potential power of the essay.