Index 
Letter to Dr. Mirsky
Tribute to Art Mirsky: This is my draft of a letter delivered to Art at a dinner to honor him at his convalescent home in Indianapolis on May 18, 2012. He died two weeks later. I am glad I got to thank him, which I did not my other geological mentor, Bill Melhorn. Art – Thank you. Your exposure to ideas and guidance on how to interpret them kindled my love affair since childhood with “what is”. Since sputnik in ’57 as I recall, I sen my sights on physics, nuclear of course, the darling of post-WWII “serious” intelligencia. Alas, three-dimensional vector math threw me for a loop in the first few weeks of my freshman year, Physics 101, taken as my first course in my Physics major and career. Oops, a seven-year old dream shattered. I then foundered in the social sciences, quite beneficially, for a while. I found consensus quite lacking there, still do. One semester I decided to try three interesting sounding courses, Comparative Religions, TV and Radio Broadcasting, and your Geology 101. The TV course was a total bust; you may remember the “we can’t teach you anything, learning must flower from within” teaching movement in 1969 or 1970? Well, that was the TV course and quickly ended my aspirations to a newsman or movie star. Both other courses planted seeds that continue to grow to this day. You showed me a science (i.e. sufficient consensus about what is known and not known) that still can be approached qualitatively, in large part; a science accessible to my limited mathematical prowess. You, your style, your subject resonated with my abilities and refocused my attention on physics – home again! And I’ve never left since, thank you. That other course? Well, it introduced me to the great eastern stoics, Hindu and Taoist, and I’ve never looked back there either. So that semester, which you are so intimately a part of, was seminal for my life in pursuit of (……?.…..,) some call it God, some god, some truth, some good and right, some random motion, some cause and effect (the ancient Greek goddess, Ananke), some ………, (well you get the picture). Along that path I have honed my observational skills and greatly expanded my repertoire of alternative explanatory hypothesis for any and all the observations. So haven’t we all? So, thank you Art, for pointing “the way” at a critical time in my life. By the way, it was the “right” way. |