Alice is the perfect young woman, brave and independent. Moreover, there are phrases in the book that all of us, and perhaps scientists above all, should keep in mind. These include:
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
His answer trickled through my head like water through a sieve.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
When my daughter Helen was about 14, she and her mother, Joan, became increasingly unhappy with one another and Helen decided she wanted to go away to a boarding school. Joan and I visited a number of schools within a 250–mile radius of Madison, and we finally agreed that by far the best was Culver Military Academy in Indiana. This was a boys' school, but they had recently started a program for girls. We were impressed with the small classes, the high academic standards, and in particular, the English department, which happened to be run by a man from my hometown in England.
The boys had four companies: the infantry, the artillery, the cavalry, and the band. The cavalry was the “black horse troop” with an assembly of beautiful black horses.1 The artillery were motorized and had small field guns. Although the boys' program was firmly established, they didn't seem to know what to do with the girls. Helen quickly acquired a brilliant academic record, but she despised discipline. For example, she liked to take long walks, and although the grounds at Culver were very extensive and clearly marked, she was continually being found in places she should not have been. I think her attitude puzzled the people at Culver, and it seemed that whenever we went to see her, she was being punished with “KP” duty, peeling potatoes.
Harry came with us on our visits to see Helen. Every Sunday the boys put on a spectacular parade, and Harry was very taken with this. I say “the boys” because there was not a single adult involved. The parade was impressive, with all four companies beautifully coordinated: The band played, the infantry marched, and the black horse troop and artillery made complicated maneuvers, all under the direction of the senior boys.
Seeing all of this, Harry decided that he wanted to go to Culver too. I tried to tell him what he would be getting into. The boys' stuff was serious. For example, a first-year student (a plebe) was a nobody who had to call everyone who was his senior “Sir.” Also he had to march, rather than walk, everywhere he went. This was whether he was inside the school or outside, and he had to make smart military turns with stomping feet as he rounded corners. All the military requirements, I explained, were in addition to academic duties. But Harry said he understood and wanted to go anyway.
The superintendent at Culver was an ex–colonel. He appeared at the Sunday church parade impeccably dressed in a snow-white uniform. Acknowledging the parents entering the church, he stood in the transept and close by was a special memorial brass plate built into the floor on which no one was allowed to stand. After we had decided that he could go to Culver, Harry came with us one Sunday to visit Helen. That day he looked unusually scruffy, but he went straight to the colonel, and standing on the forbidden spot, gave him the good news that he was coming to Culver next year. The colonel seemed to clear his throat several times, but I didn't quite catch his words.
Harry loved everything about Culver, and although he was in the infantry rather than the band, he played bass in a jazz band that was in considerable demand. When he graduated, he was a lieutenant, next to the highest rank. (There was one captain and one other lieutenant.) Helen graduated at the top of her class academically, but I think close to the bottom in matters involving discipline.
During the summer, Harry got himself a job in Culver's flying program, run by a very acerbic ex-Air Force colonel who had flown B17s. Harry's duties were to gas up the small planes used for training and to operate the radio. He reported to the colonel, who emphasized that on no account was he to be disturbed until he had had his morning coffee, and that the staff should never do anything to cause adverse publicity for the flying school.
The students under instruction had flying lessons quite early in the morning, and one day Harry received a radio message that because of some oversight, one of the planes had come down in a field. So following instructions, Harry said nothing about this until he had brought the colonel his coffee. When Harry finally did tell him what had happened, he blew a fuse. “What!” he said. “Oh my God. Get into the car and drive me there.” They found the plane, which, along with its occupants, was unharmed. The colonel had them push the plane across the field and onto the road, and he then climbed into the cockpit and took off using the road as his runway. Fortunately, there was not much traffic and the plane landed safely at the flying school. More important, however, was the lesson Harry learned about what might take precedence over morning coffee. Harry later became an expert pilot and was himself a flight instructor.
I spent many years as a spare-time consultant for various companies, and this, of course, provided income on top of my professor's salary. I saved these funds for the children, and eventually I sought legal advice as to how I might set up a trust for them. I had the assistance of a very competent lawyer, Ralph Axley, who urged me to word the legal documents in such a way that the children would not be restricted in how the funds could help them. If one wanted to go to college, the money was there; if another wanted to be an artist or a carpenter, the money was there too. In the end, both children went to university and received advanced degrees.
Helen went first to Oberlin and then to the University of Wisconsin Medical School. After surviving her residency in Eau Claire, she and some of the other new doctors made a film depicting their harried and sleepless existence as residents. They somehow managed to shoot this in the hospital, and in one scene, they are featured wheeling around from patient to patient on roller skates. In another, Helen is catching forty winks in a cot when the phone rings. “Take two aspirin and go back to sleep,” she mutters groggily. Today Helen is a physician in Chicago. She works in a clinic that serves a largely Latino population that, without the clinic, would have little access to health care.
Helen's husband, Tom Murtha, has been a city planner for most of his professional life and currently works in Chicago on the challenging issues related to traffic congestion. The development of bike trails is a special interest of Tom's, and he often rides to work from Oak Park to the downtown.
Helen and Tom have two bright and energetic boys, Isaac Alexander and Andrew Jefferson. Isaac, 16, loves theater, musicals, and literature and has an avid interest in politics. Last summer we attended a production in Madison, The Lamentable Tragedy of Scott Walker, by Doug Reed. Isaac understood all the jokes and the more subtle satire and suggested to his drama teacher that they perform the play in Oak Park. In a recent phone conversation, he reminded me, “Don't forget to give Bert [our cat] credit in your book!”
At 14, Andy has a lot of energy and is very interested in sports. After four-and-a-half years of Aikido, he is now in adult classes, and he plays soccer, volleyball, ping-pong, and all sorts of pick-up games with friends. He manages a busy schedule that makes me tired just thinking about it. He is on to high school this fall and, at this point, wants to be a neurosurgeon. If he continues to want to do this, I have no doubt that he will.
Harry went to film school at the University of Texas in Austin and graduated with a Master's degree. In 1993, having become especially interested in lighting, he wrote an encyclopedic book on the subject that has gone through four editions.2 He also learned to be a pilot with his portion of the money.
Some years ago when we were in California, we visited Harry on the set of the Disney television series, Even Stevens. Harry was shooting an episode, and we spent the entire day watching. We were impressed with what a slow process it was, with so many takes, and the very large number of people who seemed to spend a lot of time just standing around.
While we were there, they were shooting a scene that took place at a school where one of the students had brought her pet pig to show the class. She was sitting in the playground with
a boy who was eating his lunch, and the pig was tethered nearby. Harry's camera was on tracks, and it moved forward to show the boy and the girl deep in a conversation that so absorbed them that neither of them noticed that the pig was eating the boy's lunch. The success of the scene depended on the pig's appetite. Earlier mistakes must have been made because the second assistant director went round shouting through her megaphone, “Please! Don't anybody feed the pig!”
Harry met his wife, Stacey Kosier, in Hollywood, and together they bought and fixed up a bungalow not far from Disney Studios. They now spend their time between Los Angeles and Western Massachusetts and have two children, Henry Pelham and Eliza Jane (Figure 10.1). Henry plays the piano and at age nine is writing his own music. He enjoys humor and has been drawing and writing his own cartoons since he was four. When the New Yorker arrives in the mail, he dives into the cartoons, trying to understand them. Every week he enters the New Yorker caption contest (well actually, his mother sends in his entry, due to age restrictions) and is hoping to win.
Figure 10.1 Henry Pelham and Eliza Jane.
Eliza, now seven, dotes on the chickens, goats, and other animals they raise on their land. A pig, Stump (he lacks a tail), is the latest to join the menagerie, but he escaped into the woods soon after his arrival. One day Stacey saw him wandering around the yard. She lured him with seed covered in sweetened condensed milk, and soon he was back in captivity. Eliza enjoys music and is learning to play the violin. She also loves to draw, paint, and dance.
Sadly, after many years and two wonderful children, Joan and I parted ways. We have maintained a warm friendship.
1 The Black Horse Troop has taken part in nearly every presidential parade in Washington, D.C. since the 1913 inauguration of Woodrow Wilson.
2 H. C. Box, Set Lighting Technician's Handbook: Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution, 4th ed., Elsevier (Focal Press), New York, 2010.
“I only hope the boat won't tipple over!”
Chapter eleven
Fisher—Father and Son
I am sometimes asked, “What was Fisher like?” The truth is that while I had a number of contacts with him, I did not know him well. When I married Joan in 1959, Fisher became my father-in-law. We visited him in England, of course, and he came to Madison twice. He died a short time later, in July 1962. When he came to Madison, I recall going with my daughter Helen, then a toddler, to meet him at the airport. He was delighted to see his grandchild, but when he went to take her in his arms, she burst into tears.
Fisher was a scientist versed in many subjects, and as we took our walks in Madison, he impressed me with his deep understanding of the local geology and the flora and fauna. He could be extremely absent minded. While visiting, he lit his pipe while holding a box of matches in his hand, and when the box burst into flames he badly burned his hand.
Someone who did know Fisher intimately was his friend, the distinguished geneticist E.B. Ford. After Fisher died, I sent a blank audiotape to Ford asking him to talk about his remembrances. Here is a transcription of part of his response:
Our [first] meeting, which took place in 1923, was typical of Fisher. Like so many good things in my life, it was due to Julian Huxley… Meeting Fisher somewhere, Huxley mentioned he knew an undergraduate [myself] who had interesting ideas on genetics and evolution. Fisher was a fellow of Caius [at Cambridge]; he was only 33 but was already becoming famous. Other people in his position might possibly have asked briefly about me; a few might even have invited me to go see them. Fisher's reaction was different. The Fellow of Caius took a train to Oxford to call on the undergraduate!
Characteristically, it did not occur to him to let me know that he was coming, so I was out when he arrived and he settled down in my rooms in College to wait for me. On opening the door of my sitting room on my return, I was surprised to find it full of smoke from pipe tobacco, a thing which disgusts me, and to see a stranger there, a smallish man with red hair, a rather fierce, pointed red beard, and a very white face. … He took my hand in a firm, bony grip and, bending slightly forward, he gave me a momentary but most searching inspection. Then his face relaxed into a charming smile, the beginning of nearly 40 years of friendship.
…In conversation, I found myself inhibited by some people, and certainly many were inhibited by Fisher, but he and I fit perfectly and, as Roger Knox said, we could tire the sun out with talking. Yet Fisher was not always an easy companion. His vagueness in everyday affairs, and his untidiness, became a legend in its own time, and he could be irritable and inconsiderate. What he wanted took first place and it did not matter too much that other people were inconvenienced. This [was true] on the level of everyday affairs; with things of importance, it was different. He would see his friends through any difficulty or any crisis, sometimes at great trouble to himself.
…He was furious at anything he held to be unjust. I remember his anger when on an important occasion someone mentioned that a candidate for the Royal Society had been the guilty party in a divorce case. Fisher held that nothing whatever but scientific ability and achievement should influence election to the Fellowship. On the occasion I have in mind, the man concerned was certainly not anyone he was supporting but he was not going to have him, as he conceived, unjustly treated.
…Arriving in Cambridge to see him on a summer's day, he said to me, ‘You look tired. I shall take you on the river. You shall rest in the canoe while I paddle.’ Dear Fisher was half blind, the river crowded, and the canoe unstable. He would charge boat after boat, calling out, ‘Look where you're going, Sir!’ I cannot think how it was that we were not upset. Since he and I were both in our normal clothes, that would have been most unwelcome. It was a most harrowing experience.
He would take part in anything that was going on. I was present when we all had rounds of pistol shooting after a most excellent picnic lunch party. Fisher with poor sight, his finger on the trigger, waved the gun uncertainly while his friends dived for cover.
…He would leap over intermediate stages in a calculation, leaving his colleagues floundering. I have several times heard a distinguished mathematician say, ‘He has evidently solved the problem, correctly, but I don't see how he has done it.’ … He held that mathematics was one way at least of reaching general conclusions but not the only one, and, as he fully recognized, Charles Darwin, whom he so admired, was in mathematics ludicrously incompetent.
Fisher was far ahead of his contemporaries, so far, indeed, that when his epoch-making book, Statistical Methods for Research Workers, was published in 1925, it did not receive one favorable review. At the time of his death in 1962, it was in its 14th edition, with reprints, and had been translated into six languages. In 1928 or 1929 he sent a paper for publication to a famous learned society. The assessors turned it down and the officers of the society unwisely left the matter there. It was published elsewhere in 1930 exactly as it stood and it has proved to be one of the fundamental works of evolutionary biology.
…There seems little I can say by way of summary of so great a scientist and so great a friend except perhaps this: he was supremely an individualist, and if ever there was a man whose life was guided wholly by the truth, as he perceived it, it was Sir Ronald Fisher.
Transcription from a tape spoken by E.B. Ford
Fisher had a large family, two boys and seven girls, one of whom died in infancy. The oldest boy, George, joined the air force during WWII and was killed. George was his father's favorite, and Harry, the second son, was a second best. After Fisher died in 1962, Harry lived alone in the family house at Harpenden (Figure 11.1). When I first knew him, I would usually spend a few days there on my visits to England. At that time, Harry and his companions were very keen on rugby football. We would stock up on beer, and until a late hour, various of his friends and their girlfriends would tell stories and sing somewhat improper rugby songs.
Figure 11.1 Harry Fisher.
Next door lived Mrs. Hester, a mature lady who had been like a second m
other to the large Fisher clan. Mrs. Hester was one of those people who could get things done. When she decided that Harpenden needed a swimming pool, for example, she organized the effort to raise money, and thanks to her persuasiveness, the town soon had a very nice facility. The Girl Guides organization (England's equivalent of the Girl Scouts) asked her to be their regional head even though, as she pointed out, she knew nothing whatever about scouting. As always she accomplished the task with spectacular success.
Children liked Harry immediately. My own children, Helen and Harry, were no different. Later, when Helen was getting married, Harry wrote to her and asked her what she wanted for a wedding present. She said that she would like him to come to her wedding. Harry had never done much traveling, but he flew over the Atlantic first class, and he arrived in the United States in his usual clothes, looking like a tramp. He asked me, “Would these clothes do for the wedding?” I answered with a firm, “No.” I took him to an establishment that rented formal wear, where a number of young women were delighted to help him. Harry had a wonderful sense of fun and kept disappearing and reappearing in different guises, to the delight of the young ladies. He was good looking, and in his new attire, you might have mistaken him for an ambassador.
This recalls a story George Barnard told me about Harry's father. Fisher was being honored at a particular ceremony, and George managed to convince him to wear a tuxedo. This Fisher did, but the effect was somewhat spoiled when he appeared in his bedroom slippers.
When Harry died in 2008, his neighbor and friend, Margaret Homewood, wrote about him as follows:
… I had known Harry since the 1950s but he became a good friend only about five years ago. I was working in my front garden one day when he came by. He stopped; we chatted about gardening; he offered me courgettes; I offered him a lettuce and we went through to my back garden to cut one… he was interested in my rough and ready and completely unscientific method of slug control—a border of garlic around the salad bed.
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