The question period started and I anticipated the first one. I said, “I can answer that with a few slides. Ed, Batch 2.” Everyone laughed, and I answered the question. Then Carey and asked me an arcane question about my fault mapping. He was on my right, my map was hung on a wall to my left in the far corner of the room and I knew he probably couldn’t see the details. I walked over there and in a fashion reminiscent of how Ray Moore pointed at a map, I pointed to a spot. I asked Carey if that was where he saw a problem. He said, “Yes.” I then said, “Well, Sir, if you could come over here I can show that . . .” and proceeded to explain it. Flint looked at me and he had an unusual nonverbal way of showing approval and also smiled (because Carey was behind him) giving that nonverbal signal as I answered. My answer satisfied Carey. Turekian, who had cross words with Carey earlier that year, asked about red-gray color changes, and I told Ed Belt to go to another batch and showed more slides. Karl was satisfied. There were no more questions and we adjourned.
Flint told me I had given the best defense he had ever seen by a Yale PhD during the 27 years he had been there. That too made my day.
I waited outside the lecture hall while the faculty met in a conference room across the hall. After three minutes, Sanders came out and congratulated me. He then returned to the conference room and eventually they passed Platt as well.
Several days later, I drove to Dartmouth College for an interview. On arrival, they told me that they hired a clay mineralogist, so I returned to New Haven, checked my watch, and went to George and Harry’s. That evening, only Karl Turekian came and I told him about my wasted trip to Dartmouth. He said, “George when interviewing, you must understand they don’t know what they want. We just interviewed three geophysicists, all good people, and we can’t decide what we want. What you need to do is not go as a candidate. Go as a consultant trying to find out what the department needs and then show them how you fill that need.” I used that advice many times later in life.
Karl then asked if I was attending commencement and I told him that Yale could mail me the degree. He explained that graduation is for the parents and I owed it to them, particularly with my immigrant background. He explained he missed his PhD graduation ceremony because a research cruise left three days before. His mother raised him and his sister as a single parent. She worked scrubbing floors at Altman’s department store, had looked forward to seeing her son march in the graduation procession, and be awarded his PhD from Columbia. She never forgave him.
I called my parents and they said they would come. I got their tickets, arranged to rent a cap and gown, and on June 13, 1960, received my PhD. However, my father went to Europe on a critical business trip three days earlier. I caught up with him ten days later in Paris.
I was now ready to make a career in research geology.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. When things go well, don’t rest on your laurels. I took a slightly more relaxed approach my second year and it created some financial difficulties my third year.
2. Even though my third year was financially tight, I never gave up on my goal to earn a PhD in geology from Yale.
3. When things were financially tight my third year, I looked for alternative ways to finance my education by knitting together other work for which I was paid in cash or in kind.
4. Always seek alternative ways to stay on course. My GSA grant my last field season was a better arrangement than what the Nova Scotia government awarded me in previous years.
5. Always tie one’s research to the major themes and paradigms of geology, contribute to their understanding, and utilize new observations and analysis to challenge and improve them.
6. Take advantage of every research opportunity an area offers.
7. During job interviews, always assume the potential employer is looking at you for guidance in their decision and by doing so, they are more likely to offer a position.
8. When giving oral presentations at meetings, the perception of delivering a good or great paper is often enhanced by a poor presentation or paper by the previous speaker.
POSTSCRIPT #1. When Carl Dunbar was offered a faculty appointment at Minnesota in 1917, he went home to discuss it with his father, as he told us during the spring, 1958 field trip. The Dunbar family owned the largest farm in Douglas County, KS. After listening, his father thought a while and said, “Carl, that’s fine. Just make sure they pay you at least $300.00 a month.”
POSTSCRIPT #2. Richard F. Flint was considered by many to be extremely vain and many stories circulated around the department. My favorite was about his return to Yale after World War II ended. He served as a Captain in the U. S. Army supervising a weather station in Greenland. On returning, he wore his uniform, including to his Science 2 class. One day he stepped into the Science 2 classroom and noticed the students all wore their military uniforms. He discovered that ten students in the front row out-ranked him through battlefield commissions. He never wore the uniform again.
Chapter 8
The Keuper Marl of the UK (Summer 1960)
Walter Whitehead retired from M.I.T. in 1957. His job as M.I.T’s director of field camp in Nova Scotia and Professorship was accepted by Arthur J. Boucot, a paleontologist at the U.S.G.S. Art earned a BS and PhD in geology from Harvard. He fought in World War II as a tail gunner in allied bombing missions over Germany and as a result, developed a crusty, fearless, and direct style.
During the summer of 1959, Art invited me to the M.I.T camp in Antigonish to give an evening colloquium on my research. When I was finished, a guest, Dr. W. Stuart McKerrow (BSc, Glasgow, PhD Oxford, paleontology; Oxford) asked questions. Stuart was an Oxford lecturer who kept asking how similar my findings in the Nova Scotia Triassic were to the Keuper Marl of the UK. I answered some of his questions and then said, “Sir, let me ask you a question. Has anyone done any sedimentology on the Keuper Marl?” Stuart responded, “No, why don’t you raise some grant money and come over and do it yourself.”
Art, Stuart and I then adjourned to Art’s cabin for drinks with Art’s wife, Bobbie (Barbara), and we discussed Stuart’s suggestion. I reviewed it later with John Sanders and applied to Sigma Xi for field expense money. They awarded me $750 and my parents, as a graduation gift, offered to pay for my plane ticket and give me another $500.
I bought a cheap charter flight through Yale University on Trans International Airlines (TIA). After leaving New York in June, 1960, and a refueling stop in Iceland, we detoured to Shannon, Ireland, for engine repairs.
We arrived in Shannon before sundown and the landing strip had about 12 fire engines parked and ready to roll. TIA provided meal coupons for food no better than the tuck shops at Scotch College. We waited. I sent Stuart McKerrow a telegram to let him know I was delayed.
We left at 7:00 am next morning and arrived three hours later at Gatwick Airport. From there, I took connecting trains to London and in Oxford I took a cab to the University Museum (Oxford’s Geology Building). On the way, the driver asked (my phonetics), “Oh Sai, what univoisity in America did you goe to, Harvard or Yale?” I told him Yale and realized if it had been elsewhere he would have been lost.
Oxford University, as the reader knows, is one of the oldest universities in the western world. Its origins were in the classics and liberal arts. Oxford is a confederation of colleges where the power of the institution resides. Admission as an undergraduate is to one of the colleges where nearly all their instruction is given. Thus, much duplication of effort exists. Instruction is through a combination of lectures and weekly individual tutorials with faculty, even in the sciences. Exams are given only at the end of each term, and an overall general comprehensive exam is given to candidates to earn a BA- or BS-equivalent degree.
Science Departments appeared