Water Resources
and Issues
Because I think what I really wanted to be when I was a teenager was a writer.
You know, I was very-well, poetic. I know I don't have that kind of talent,
at least I don't think I do, but some people thought that I did and used to
encourage me to write.
Well, you were talking about these
books-the Harvard Classics series, and
how this helped
Well, I think reading a lot of good literature is how you develop the ability to
write, and that's had a big effect on me because the ability to write and
communicate either in writing or verbally is very important.
Yeah. It's a bit unusual, at least to me-and perhaps I'm showing some bias of
my own here-for a person
an engineering bent to have also an enthusiasm
for the classics, for reading and writing and so forth. So
a bit
unusual. Do you think it's in some ways helped you in your career?
Well, I do think it helped me in the ability to communicate, and when you get
down to it, communication, either writing or speaking, is essential in any
profession, and that's why I mentioned it. I think it did have an effect, which
I didn't really realize until many, many
later and I realized that I did have
the benefit of a much better classical education than most people who went
through engineering school-at least who went through engineering school at
the end of the 1930s.
Now, a lot of what I read I can't really remember-I can pick up those books
and look at them now and I can't imagine that I ever read them, because some
of it's pretty hard going for me even now, some of those early novels and all
that. But I laid on that hammock under a big maple tree and read one book
after another-I was on crutches all summer.
I never did finish my school work but even though I didn't go to the last six or
seven weeks of school because I was in the hospital, they passed me because
I had good enough marks up then.
About the end of August I was off of the crutches and went to school and the
first day of school, I slipped on something in the hall and I was back on
crutches again.
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