Here he is after doing me a favor - chairing the first Science Commons
meeting we ever hosted, at the US National Academy of Science. Thanks,
Dad! We also co-wrote one of my favorite papers, on
open access and sustainable
development.
He’s also a pretty normal guy who hangs out in sweatpants at home, likes
salty snack treats, and is the first to get silly with my 3-year-old
son. One of my favorite pictures of him (which I need to scan) is him,
tie askew, in the California sun and wind, sometime in the early 1980s,
on a road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the whole family.
His tongue is out, his eyes are serious, he’s intent on something. And
he’s entirely there, in that moment, no attention elsewhere. That’s my
memory of Dad childhood: silly, present, smart, dignified, and generally
speaking, hittable with a water balloon.
Dad grew up in
the brown lands just after the dust bowl and the Depression - the Texas
high plains always stand out in his stories. He graduated from high
school in Canyon Texas in the mid-50s and was ready to go.