Water Resources People and Issues
Well, let me ask you this. When you were in high school, in particular, did you
early develop an interest in science and mathematics and things of this sort,
Yes. I was always good in science and mathematics. I remember when I took
geometry once arguing with the teacher and proving that she was wrong in
something she had put on the board, One of my friends said, "Mac, she's
going to flunk you. Instead, she gave me an A.
Good for her.
A: I loved chemistry and physics, but strangely enough, the thing that obsessed me
at that particular time was maps. My grandfather had bought a lot of atlases
which had beautiful maps-these would be engraved maps that were so
carefully printed that they were works of art-back in the
1880s. My
family was the repository for many of my grandfather's possessions. Having
lived on the farm and living in a huge old house in Reisterstown, we had lots
of space. So many of the relics from my grandfather came down to my father,
including the shoemaker's tools. I still have some of those lasts that, I'm sure,
were my grandfather's. My father kept them all; we kept everything.
But I was obsessed with maps. I became a Boy Scout. I mapped everything in
sight using a compass and pacing techniques that were required for the First
Class Scout test. I was really obsessed with maps, and the reason I mention this
is it had quite a bearing on something that happened much later in my life.
Johns Hopkins University
Q: When you decided to go to college, did you have any difficulty making a
choice?
A: Well, that's where the maps came in. I knew I wanted to be a civil engineer,
largely because I wanted to make maps, but it was kind of a romantic vision of
civil engineering, of a man out there squinting through a telescope with riding
britches and-that's the way surveyors used to dress in those days-and so
when I applied at Johns Hopkins, I listed civil engineering as my major. I'm
sure that's the reason.
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