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What's been happening:
After the four idyllic years at Pomona1
and another four at McGill2, I did an internship and residency
in medicine on the Osler service at Hopkins, where I met Monica,
whom I married in 1969. She chose oncology as a career and I chose
endocrine research in the ivory tower. After spending two years
at NIH3, I went to Yale as an endocrine
fellow, then stayed on the faculty. Monica, ever-efficient, had
twin daughters while she worked at Yale Health Plan. We then both
accepted faculty positions at SUNY at Buffalo. I run the research
program at the VA Hospital, dealing with bean counters and capricious
shifts in funding4. (Our VA research building was
constructed without pork barrel funds). We do rewarding research
and take good care of veterans (and hyperthyroid cats).
Memorable Profs:
Fredrick Mulhauser’s
semantic distinctions, Fred Bracher’s obscure associations,
Corwin Hansch’s bow-tie diene, and Walt Ogier, an unassuming
physicist.
Problems:
Infoglut: 50 e-mails a day. Most with attachments that must be
opened and read carefully in order to find to find the one that
is boring but urgent.
We now can search tens of thousands of complete scientific articles on-line, which is exasperating for a highly distractible dabbler.
Our successful species:
We consume one
third of the photosynthesized biomass on the land surface of the
earth, but don’t worry: in the future we will be more efficient,
eating the products of hydroponic fungus gardens.
There’s a certain natural symmetry in the fact that many of us will succumb as defects appear in the processes that should make some of our cells die every day.
Satisfactions:
Our girls remained happy with the colleges they attended (Middlebury,
Pomona), and have found good mates and careers, in Boston and
Berkeley.
Pomona classmates have generally lived with a clear objective of helping others.
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1struggling with daily problem
sets and weekly papers. 2mostly memorizing. 3n.b.
not Vietnam. 4Congress first pours funds all
over an issue, then suddenly cuts off the funding. Both responses
are commonly related to a media-conflated "scandal"
that indignant legislators puff up, trying to grab attention and
votes.