Dying to Come Back As a Memoir

Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen Dying to come back as a Memoir When George Gershwin asked to study composition with Maurice Ravel, Ravel replied, “Why be a second- rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” a I much prefer that my own style be my own, uncultivated and rude, but made to fit as a garment, to the measure of my mind rather than someone else’s, which may be more elegant, ambitious, and adorned but one that deriving from a greater genius, continually slips off, Copyright © 2013 by Stephen Rosen. All rights reserved. unfitted to the humble proportions of my intellect. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any --Petrarch means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author. a Disclaimer: This book is based on fallible memory and many of the stories did not “Is it true, Rabbi, that ‘Do unto others as you would have them actually happen the way I describe them; portrayals of individuals and events contain motivated misperceptions, selective recall, confirmation biases, irony, and inventive or do unto you’ summarizes all of the Torah’s wisdom, and all imaginative recreations that make me appear wiser and more heroic or than I actually Jewish ethical and moral teachings?” was or am. --Astrophysicist PROSPECT PRESS 7 Prospect Boulevard East Hampton, NY 11937 and “Well, let me answer your question with a question. Is it true that 35 West 81st Street, Suite 1D all of astrophysics -- stellar evolution, cosmology, supernovae -- New York, NY 10024 is summarized by saying “Twinkle, twinkle, little star?” Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data --Rabbi Rosen, Stephen Youth, Middle-Age and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen a Dying to come back as a Memoir Everyone knows that the insane interpret the world via ISBN: 1479382205 ISBN 13 9781479382200 their own peculiar logic; how can you tell if your own LCCN: 2013901060 logic is “peculiar”, given that you have only your own CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform logic to judge itself? North Charleston, South Carolina --Douglas Hofstadter Also by Stephen Rosen a COSMIC RAY ORIGIN THEORIES (1960, Dover) FUTURE FACTS (1976, Simon & Schuster) WEATHERING (1979, M. Evans) I did not invent human beings. CAREER RENEWAL (1998, Academic/HBJ) with Celia Paul --Saul Bellow Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen Dying to come back as a Memoir TABLE OF CONTENTS I Youth Introduction: Kernels of Truth in Grains of Salt ..............xiii 1. A Man For All Reasons .............................. 1 The sunshine man, from rags to riches 2. On Being A Good Person . 17 Kindness and generosity 3. Genealogical Research �� 25 Throwing stones 4. Exceeding My Expectations �� 31 Eight, sixteen, twenty-one 5. Before You Were Born �� 37 Things happened 6. Deadly Hitch-hike. 45 Saving three lives 7. Geniuses, Wunderkinds & Stevie Wonder . 51 Role models 8. The Physics Years: Owego, Ft. Schuyler, & Paris . 61 A physicist travels 9. Future Facts . 71 Why a book? 10. Measure Twice; Cut Once! . 75 Impulsive and inattentive vii Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Table of Contents II MIDDLE-AGE 4. A Person Of Interest: The FBI, The CIA, and The KGB �� 195 What did he do to deserve this? 1. My Half-Life . 85 Radioactivity and other decays 5. Darwin, Darwin, and Self-Flattery . 203 A stoic Ecuadorian comrade 2. Tiresias & Loneliness �� 89 Who enjoys love-making more? 6. Passion-At-Work . 209 Most satisfying accomplishments 3. Rich Uncle, Poor Uncle �� 99 A couple of fraudulent bastards 7. Anastomosis: The Tree-House and Marriage �� 215 Measure twice; cut once 4. Urban Biking . 105 An accident and a saint 8. Comedy Workshop �� 219 A funny thing happened on the way to married bliss 5. Driving A Taxi . 109 Down and out in New York 9. Singin’ In The Brain . 225 Songs my mother never taught me 6. A Volunteer In Israel . 113 Digging sandbags and roots 10. A Glamorous Dubious Past . 247 My beautiful daughter, the charmer 7. Mouse-traps, or Dead Mice? . 119 Mistakes 11. Oy Gevalt! �� 259 A religious conversion 8. The Sex Life of My Former Piano Teacher . 123 Sex at ninety-three 12. Ironic Assemblages �� 261 Welded transformations 9. Chinese Water Torture & Christian Science . 127 Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law 13. A Tough Act To Follow . 265 Celia after Dershowitz 10. Polishing The Turd . 133 Shrinks versus the Rabbi 14. The Road Less-Traveled �� 269 Another path III YOU-LOOK-GREAT! 15. Grand-Kids As A Reward . 275 Galway, London, Paris, Villefavard, Barcelona, 1. Nice Work & You Can Get It: My Finest Hour �� 169 Soviet émigré refuse-nik scientists as New Americans 16. Me Infinitesimal! . 285 Hard-wired for significance 2. How I Met The Sunshine of My Life �� 187 She made three conclusions 17. My ‘Rosebud’ and ‘The Table’ . 289 Peripatetic mahogany 3. Sol Paul & Dublin’s Jewish Lord Mayors . 191 Shiksa fever 18. Afterwords: Both and Neither �� 293 Both and Neither viii ix APPENDICES A. The Difference Between Talent and Genius The author’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration -- with encomi- ums, criticisms, praise, witticisms, original songs, stories (some even true), introductions, and panegyrics. B. Rockefeller University Panel “Career Change Among Scientists”, Rockefeller University November 13, 1997 Participants: Joseph Atick, President and CEO of Visionics Corporation, and Rockefeller University; David Z. Robinson, Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and the Government; Stephen Rosen, Science and Technology Advisory Board; Celia Paul, Celia Paul Associates. C. Cosmic Messengers Gifts from beyond D. What’s Good About Goodbye? You don’t have to break glass to get air; you can open the window. E. In Memoriam: Harding Willinger Eighty percent of him was greater than one hundred percent of anyone else. F. Expertise As An Addiction The perils of trained incapacity G. Heroes of Nine-Eleven Untimely deaths of people I worked with. H. Obituary Notice As Imagined by the Author What he thinks he wants to be remembered for. xi INTRODUctION: KERNELS OF TRUTH IN GRAINS OF SALT In the locker room each day after I swim, I place my wet swim- suit into a device that wrings out the water. It’s a small automatic spin-dryer whose centrifugal force flings the water out of my black nylon Speedo. The sign on the spin-dryer says: “This unit is self-timed and will shut down automatically at the end of its cycle. It will not reset.” I see these words every day after I swim …and it slowly dawns on me that this sign is an epiphany. An inert spin-dryer sign is communi- cating not only Instructions about a Device, but also a Decree and a Verdict on the end of my life. Hemingway put it differently: “For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”. The message I take away from the locker room is virtually the same: For whom the spin-dry cycle rolls, it rolls for thee. The end is near. My end is nearer than it’s ever been. Friends I haven’t seen in a while greet me with, “You look great!” But “Youth” and “Middle-age” have passed me by. So I conclude that You-look-great! is the third phase of my life. Sure, the end is near, but I prefer to call the period I now inhabit, the “You-look- great” phase of my life. Irony, tongue-in-cheek, grains of salt, kernels of truth…yes, all of these can be found in “You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen!” If I really do look great, it’s a peculiarly unfair and paradoxi- cal compliment. Why do people expect me to have the memory ability, the physical agility, the quickness-of-mind, the word-flu- ency and vocabulary I had in my mid-fifties or mid-sixties, just because I may sometimes “look great.” I’m really an old guy now, xiii Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Introduction: or what-would-have-been-considered-old in my parents’ era. When substance? With a tongue in cheek…as a jocular extrovert, a semi- my parents were my age now (late seventies) they had been dead hypochondriac? A friend says: “To know Steve is to be his friend.” for five years. Why can’t I look my age? Another says “Steve feels emotions more deeply than others.” A People say, “What’s your secret?” I’ve got well-rehearsed, former colleague said: “Winston Churchill was an introvert com- tongue-in-cheek answers: “First, you have to choose the right pared to Steve Rosen.” But Winston said: “We are all worms, but I grandparents. [I did!] Second, you have to be happily married. [I believe I am a glow-worm”. He was. Am I? am!] Third, you have to love your work. [Yes!] Fourth, you have Am I a sunset (at the end of my days) re-living a dawn (by cel- to take naps [I do!]. And most important, you have to act immature. ebrating the beginnings of my days)? Or am I simply a voluble [Check! And Double-Check!]” I get weak smiles at these sopho- candidate for that support group for people in recovery who talk moric lines. Occasionally, I quote them when someone asks why too much, called “On-and-On Anon”? I look so young for my age. If I volunteer my age, a stranger may In this book I’m defining who I am from imperfections –expe- say, “But you look much younger.” This gives me the opportunity to riences and events gleaned from each phase of my life.

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