Miscellaneous Musings.
Update: That previous report on Pacific Grove got friend, Pat Young, in Bastrop, TX, to reminiscing and e-mailing. I need to amend one part of my PG report: She and Wayne met there, at the PG Methodist Church, but they didn't marry there. That happened in Newfoundland when Wayne was in the service and about to be shipped to Germany. That church no longer exists -- metamorphosed into the Butterfly Methodist Church we went to on Easter.
A little more history: Pat's family moved to PG from KY during WWII for work -- in the sardine canneries. After several years here, they returned to KY for about six years, then, when that didn't work out, returned for Pat's senior year in HS. And the rest is history. Years later, Wayne taught a course at NPS so they got to come back to lovely Pacific Grove for a while.
One other correction: my student from Korea is in the AF, not Navy.
Incidentally, every Tuesday is Uniform Day on campus. All the students and faculty in the services wear their uniforms and snap salutes when rank requires it. Looks really great and it's easy to be proud of and impressed by this international collection of young people, studying and serving, sharpening their skills.
We went back to PG on Sunday, 4/20, for lunch and then a dulcimer concert by Steve Eulberg, of Ft. Collins, CO. He played both the hammered dulcimer and the mountain dulcimer -- very different instruments, but both called dulcimers for some unknown reason.
Eulberg also played the guitar and sang. One of his songs was about ships in the harbor -- they're safe, but that's not where they're meant to be; they're meant to sail the sea. Also, "more sailors rot in port than ever are drowned in the sea." Parallel verse was that children are safe at home, but that's not where they're meant to be. Nothing was said about them rotting if they don't leave, but you could infer the point. Actually, it was a more serious statement about life than I'm making it sound. You had to be there.
The concert was in the PG Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church and the pastor played his two-necked guitar and sang along for part of the program. That's when they got into bluegrass sorts of music -- I Saw the Light, Will the Circle be Unbroken -- which was a lot of fun. After the concert, at a reception, we talked to a couple of church ladies about bluegrass music in the area. They suggested Santa Cruz, about an hour up the coast, so maybe we'll have a chance to check that out. Very friendly people there who invited us back for a Sunday service.
Took a picture of this house near where we watched the PG Good OldDays parade. My shots the day of the parade didn't come out. Anyhow, thought the colors and the yucca plant were nice.
We've become regular attendees at the Marina Methodist Church -- that's the handiest and the people there are very friendly, too. It's small -- about 50 in attendance. Today they had to cancel the Children's sermon because the church's two children who regularly attend (a brother and sister) weren't there today.
We found out, as we were eating in Denny's Wed. evening, that the church has a small group (naturally)-- the Dapper Diners --that eats together every Wednesday evening. They saw us and so this week we joined them. Cal-Mex food is not New-Mex food, you won't be surprised to know. We've gotten used to Wednesday evening dinners at St. John's, so the tradition will sort of continue out here.
Sermon Sunday was about "Let not your heart be troubled." Text: John 14. Memorable line, from another John: John Wesley said, "I could no more worry than I could curse or swear." Not a bad philosophy, unless you do a lot of cursing.
This week the Naval Postgraduate School inaugurated its first civilian president, though you might say semi-civilian -- he's a retired Admiral. Various people who send out campus e-mail had been encouraging all faculty to attend the ceremony and wear their academic regalia. Well, on short notice, all I had to wear was an orange Oklahoma State University t-shirt. I think it fit in well.
Here's an online picture of the Del Monte Hotel that I copied and pasted. It's now the school's admin building (I may have done this in an earlier blog, but maybe you forgot, too).
There are quite a few buildings on campus of this vintage and style, plus a scattering of conventional government-issue office and classroom buildings.
I asked the NPS instructor who's sitting in on my class what the significance of this change in leadership is or would be. He thought it would weaken the school's connections to the Pentagon and that would not be helpful. A few years ago the NPS was targeted for closing by the BRAC (base-closure committee), but the school survived it, Tom said, because the Army (!) made the case for keeping the school. How's that for inter-service cooperation.
One of the speakers was the president of Penn State University. I believe he was introduced as the chairman of NPS's Board and he's served on various DoD advisory committees. He told a statistical/law joke: A senior, successful lawyer was reflecting on his career and he said, "When I was young, I lost some cases I should have won. Then when I was older, I won some I should have lost. So, on the average, justice was served. Takes so little to make us statisticians feel acknowledged, if not respected.
Steinbeck: We went to a talk last week by a Steinbeck scholar and author of a book about Steinbeck and Country (Monterey Penninsula, etc). The occasion was a meeting of the Central Coast Chapter of the California Writers Club -- not often you C that many Cs in one sentence. Her name is Susan Shillinglaw and her book is "A Journey into Steinbeck's California." We found her talk very interesting and entertaining. Talked quite a bit about the researching and writing process as well as her subject, John Steinbeck.
Shillinglaw started out talking about her career of 18 years as an editor -- how much she enjoyed the editing process. One of her products was a collection of essays about Steinbeck by various eminent writers -- it was exciting to interact with these people and to see it all come together in something special. (In a very small way I can identify with what she was talking about -- in the early 80s I edited a stat journal and during that time put together a special 25th anniversary issue, choosing and inviting the authors I wanted.)
Shillinglaw subsequently became director of the Steinbeck Center in Salinas and, as if that wasn't enough to keep her busy, began edging into writing. Her editor/publisher gave her a schedule -- I think a chapter a month, at least in some form -- and that sort of constraint kept things moving. Left to her own devices she might have researched forever, because she really enjoyed that, too. As I sit here blogging, instead of working on my book, -- oh, well, never mind. My Steinbeck reading is lagging, too. Have only read the short book, Cannery Row, and barely started the sequel, Sweet Thursday.
Tomorrow (Th) we head for San Francisco. I'm giving a talk in Palo Alto then we're going to spend most of the weekend in The City, as they say. The talk's theme, Passion-Driven Statistics, is about how we get no respect and what we need to do about it. Wish you could all be present for the occasion.
Cheers,
Rob and Susie
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