Dr. Metablog

Now only one of my teachers survives — and then only because he's a centenarian. Steve Parrish, next-to-last, who was very kind to me back there in the 1950s, died a year ago at the age of 90. News travels slowly.  I now realize that Steve was only a couple of years out of grad school when I met him (his career started late because of two Navy stints, one in WWII and one in Korea). He was disarmingly casual, but nevertheless learned and intelligent. In retrospect, I am stunned that he was able to listen to my adolescent blather with a straight face. I also remember a dinner at his home where his genial demeanor was taxed by the ferocity of his then-wife. Of his famous grandfather,I tried but never got him to say a word. Letters and postcards from him were appropriately signed, "Affably, SMP.  I remember that he helped me with my undergraduate thesis, helped me to win
a Wilson, and wouldn't let me quit the "large Eastern university" to which he had sent me when I wanted to come back home to the alma mater far above Cayuga's waters. 

I should have thanked him. Too late.