Who Looked Like a Turtle. As We Went out of Kresge in the Setting Sun We
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who looked like a turtle. As we went out of Kresge in the setting sun we noticed that ROTC was having a full exercise on the playing fields and a few hundred young men in uniform were lined up, 5 deep, all along one side of the pitches. I looked at Mike, he looked at me and, grinning, we went into action. Mike's car was a "convertible", which meant that a rectangular patch on the metal roof was open and protected by a thick canvas which slid over rails in closed or open position. With the mild weather it was, of course, open. I sat in the driver's seat, Mike pulled out his dagger and stood on the passenger seat, more than half of his body out and erect and we drove very slowly in front of the troops as Mike, in full Roman general garb, "reviewed" them, arm extended holding high the dagger. The poor kids had a very difficult time not laughing, not moving, not responding with a salute. Eventually, ¾ of the way down the line we spotted an officer. Mike quickly sat down, I turned the car around and sped to Kresge's delivery entrance, underground. We went back inside and hoped no one on the parade grounds noticed our destination. Nobody did. (2) Mike was also a consumate fencer and decided, one day, after much ribbing on my part, to show me how it was done. At the time we lived in a derelict house in Revere, together with our bearded friend Stewart Mott, who fancied himself an actor and, in spite of a General Motors fortune, nickeled and dimed us with every supermarket bill. We went to the "garden" (a weed- infected front lawn) in order to have more space and Mike started his demonstration. Little by little a dozen "neighbors" gathered in the street to watch us : they seemed to be very amused by the whole thing and it finally dawned on us that these guys were probably "made" (that was Revere, then) and thought that, whatever the conflict, a quick shot would settle it better than that silly, effeminate 'duel'. Sorry, musketeers’ (3) There are also some vignettes which come back as I write this. Having dinner at a friends place with Norbert Wiener, whom they knew well, then crossing him in the corridor a few days later, distracted as usual and, of course, not recognizing me as he asked me for directions. Breaking my regular glasses and having to wear prescription sunglasses in a wintery, cloudy day for an oral exam in which both the professor and his assistant spent the time making fun of me, such as asking if I was a Colombian dealer; I got up and left in the middle of one of their course questions, but was "saved" from an "F" by my adviser's ensuing intervention. Writing a scathing review of that year's Tech Show and, particularly, of then-Professor Green - the faculty supervisor - as a foul-mouthed, arrogant but unknowledgeable man, and being called to President Stratton's office for a gentle but firm warning. Having the opportunity, thanks to Professor Everingham, the Director and soul of Dramashop, to meet and talk theater with many interesting people such as John Gielgud, Peter Ustinov, Jean-Louis Barrault, Madeleine Renaud or Edward Albee, to name a few. As a "thank you" for what the Institute brought me, beyond the formal education itself, I was glad to act, for years, as it Educational Councilor in Paris. And wouldn't mind doing it again here in Bordeaux (hint, hint). Tell us about your professional life and experiences since you graduated from MIT: I worked for IBM Brazil as the Assistant Director of its Applied Sciences Department, then at Gillette Brazil, before coming back to the U.S. to join Keydata, the company founded by Charles Adams - an eccentric genius or a genial eccentric, depending on the day - where I designed and programmed the first time-sharing commercial applications in the world, based on the Keydata original development of virtual memory (paging) and on-line, real time principles and operating system. They did the hard work and I just Coboled. Later I joined Peat, Marwick Consulting in Boston (but with projects all over the U.S., including Rome…New York and Omaha), then moved to Caracas, in Venezuela, for a CANTV (telephone company) project and, at its conclusion, to Paris where I worked on a number of different European clients from Peat's before becoming a Manager and running a major project in Algeria for the Ministry of Industry and Energy. After Algeria I came back to Paris, quit Peat, Marwick (today it's KPMG) and became an independent consultant for almost 35 years, with major and recurring clients particularly in the Press but also in the cosmetics industry and other consumer products. Tell us about yourself and family and interests over the past 50 years: I have always written, starting with a small opus of poems published in French in Rio de Janeiro (where I was brought up) at the age of 19 and which sound, today, shamelessly adolescent. I also wrote fourteen 117 one-hour dramas which were produced on Brazilian TV, before coming to MIT where I wrote one-act plays for Dramashop - one of them ended up in an evening of one-acts at the now-defunct Boston Theatre Company - and won five Boit Prizes for literature. I also had a one-hour drama written for the "On Being Black" series on W-GBH (the Boston affiliate of PBS), in the early 60's. I have been fortunate to have fiction and non-fiction published, from children's stories in Brazil, to articles in TV Guide, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review (two of them, one of which has been translated in several languages and incorporated in management books), the Boston Globe's Sunday Magazine, L'Express (in France), Manchete (in Brazil) and others. Lately I published a novel, "Deceit", inspired by my time in Algeria and which is available on Amazon on paperback and for Kindle (search by name of author). I have also been the Honorary Consul of Brazil in Bordeaux for over 7 years and have the privilege of being the logistics coordinator for the Brazilian National football (uh, soccer) team with whom I travel all over the world and on whose staff I participated in four World Cups and uncountable "friendlies" (or exhibition games in the official, elegant lingo). I am extremely lucky to be married with Barbara (for 43 years as of 2012), an American speech therapist whose favorite pastime is oenology, which is hardly surprising after 40 years in France of which the last ten were in Bordeaux! Although it is difficult to forget or get over the death almost 18 years ago of my daughter at 34 - a well-known soap opera actress in Brazil - we are very fortunate to have a wonderful grand-daughter in Rio who is married to a TV director with whom she has had our two great-grand-daughters. So far, mostly so good. William C. Frazier Course: II Tell us about your recollections of your student years at MIT: Some might remember me as the guy who rode a unicycle across Harvard Bridge and around the halls of MIT. I still have the photos that AP used when it went viral. Commissioned a 2nd Lt. and with my brown bars pinned on by my squeeze at the time I was relieved of $10 as the price paid for the first salute by an enlisted man. My graduation gift went to buy a banjo--to my parent’s disgust---more on this later. Tell us about your professional life and experiences since you graduated from MIT: The University of Pennsylvania accepted me for a master’s degree in ME. Then the Army gave me a report date a year later from that graduation so what to do? Earn some money and off to Paris, France for the rest of my education with musicians, artists, and travelers. Learned some French and traveled around much of Europe. The Army gave me a year in Frankfurt, Germany and then a last year near Tacoma, Washington as a captain and where I courted Ann, my wife-to-be and learned to play guitar. People won’t sing over a banjo. Back to Penn for a PhD in ME, to become a professor. It was a struggle and then, alas, in 1971 no teaching jobs. Luckily Westinghouse R&D in Pittsburg needed someone to do just-emerging Finite Element Analysis on ceramics for gas turbines. And of course, Ann, with a PhD in zoology did get a teaching job. Tell us about yourself and family and interests over the past 50 years: We wanted to be in the Pacific Northwest so I was very pleased to start work in Pulp and Paper research in Vancouver, Canada; and thus to establish my life’s career. Serious singing and 12 string guitar playing were a nice distraction. Laid off in ‘82 I came to Portland, OR with wife and two kids, and continued 118 doing research and visiting paper mills to design processes and optimize existing ones. Travel was required from Finland to Japan and all over the US and Canada. A musical highlight was being invited to join choirs to sing two different concerts at Carnegie Hall in NYC. By now I’m playing electric bass in a rock band as well. Ann plays drums—and did so at our daughter’s wedding.