Some things you should know about Father Major:
He was once pulled off a plane in Minneapolis as a suspected terrorist and questioned for three hours. Turns out an air marshal got suspicious when he peeked at Father Major’s laptop and saw he was writing about Afghanistan and God. Imagine how friendly all the other passengers were to him when they were finally able to get back on the plane. They, too, were detained, he explained, because “I could have had an accomplice.”
Despite the British accent, he was born and raised in New Zealand. He can do a passable accent from there but says it hurts after awhile.
He is a rugby player.
He once lived in a 15th century palazzo — with a ballroom — in Florence, but gave it up to move to Iowa. It was love, not corn, that propelled him: His wife was teaching at Iowa State and her bi-continental commute was getting to be too much. “It makes me one of the great romantic heroes,” he noted.