My ol' Dad was Labor Party (i.e. limey Democrats) all his life and a professor doesn't get too many opportunities to walk a picket line ... but he did get one.
He NEVER dressed like this ... but ... when he did, he would be stylin'.
It's an odd thing to see him younger then than I am now. Heya, ol' Dad, hat tip.
Although the probability was low of any appearance from company goons to break the strike line, he had to get out there and represent because he was high profile and you bet the administration was watching.
Nothin' stopped my ol' Dad
This was after multiple heart attacks and strokes. He's not exactly showing Jean Claude stylin' but check this: he was seventy-three at the time, eight years older than I.
This is the same place where later he went into convulsions and I thought he would die in my arms right there. Nope, not today.
He lived and I watched, finest kind of lesson he could have given.
Here's one more from the historical files, a few years after the ski shot but not so many.
From left to right, Professors Hal Fishbein, Carl Heuther, Larry Erway, Alex Fraser
Fishbein was a long-time friend at the University of Cincinnati and I took several courses from him regarding psychology and human development.
Heuther and Erway had taken their PhD's under Alex and they came too when he left UC Davis and went on to University of Cincinnati. That started around 1962 and this photograph was taken sometime after 1996.
Erway shot many of the photographs of the paintings Alex had all over the place at the University and Erway generously donated them to the family. Alex painted on anything he could reach and he did huge murals on the walls of the Biology Department. He was the department head so who's going to say no (larfs).
Note: we learned eccentric from the best. Of course they thought he was crazy ... he was ... but it was fine kind of crazy.
My ol' Dad looks a little dreamy-eyed in this one and I don't have the background on that but his mind was always sharp, no matter what kind of punches he took.
You ain't forgotten, ol' Dad, and neither is one of the things which fascinated him the most.
Alex Fraser painted this because he was specifically seeking the optical illusion in it. The fascination in it for him was he maintained there was a strong correlation between the effect of the illusion and artistic sensibilities in the viewer.
He would try not to load the question by telling people what he expected and he would ask visitors what they saw when they looked at it.
Note: don't look dead center at it but rather look off a bit to one side.
If after the above you see the image spinning then that was the key, in his view, to an indication of artistic sensibility.
As a younger man, he would have been pursued this with a research scientist's vigor but it was more a personal curiosity in later years. It's unknown if this has been pursued by other scientists and, in some ways, it's better not to know as this represents perfectly for my ol' Dad and what others may have done represents in other ways.
(Ed: so what does it do to the Silas?)
Spins like a fookin' child's top on a table and I can't look at it for long, never could.
(Ed: what is a top?)
Yer killin' me. Let me guess ... New School?
Here's a really Ancient School top but it's a fine example as the kid winds the string around it and the top doesn't look like much but teaches the little rotters multiple things: the kids need the patience to wind up the string to get the payoff. There has to be some physical coordination to use the string to get it spinning.
It's a simple toy but there are deep physics which the kid will absorb at an elemental level. The top demonstrates center of gravity, centrifugal force, gyroscopic motion, and many exceptionally important concepts but they don't come off a blackboard, the kid just spins the top and watches them in action.
He NEVER dressed like this ... but ... when he did, he would be stylin'.
It's an odd thing to see him younger then than I am now. Heya, ol' Dad, hat tip.
Although the probability was low of any appearance from company goons to break the strike line, he had to get out there and represent because he was high profile and you bet the administration was watching.
Nothin' stopped my ol' Dad
This was after multiple heart attacks and strokes. He's not exactly showing Jean Claude stylin' but check this: he was seventy-three at the time, eight years older than I.
This is the same place where later he went into convulsions and I thought he would die in my arms right there. Nope, not today.
He lived and I watched, finest kind of lesson he could have given.
Here's one more from the historical files, a few years after the ski shot but not so many.
From left to right, Professors Hal Fishbein, Carl Heuther, Larry Erway, Alex Fraser
Fishbein was a long-time friend at the University of Cincinnati and I took several courses from him regarding psychology and human development.
Heuther and Erway had taken their PhD's under Alex and they came too when he left UC Davis and went on to University of Cincinnati. That started around 1962 and this photograph was taken sometime after 1996.
Erway shot many of the photographs of the paintings Alex had all over the place at the University and Erway generously donated them to the family. Alex painted on anything he could reach and he did huge murals on the walls of the Biology Department. He was the department head so who's going to say no (larfs).
Note: we learned eccentric from the best. Of course they thought he was crazy ... he was ... but it was fine kind of crazy.
My ol' Dad looks a little dreamy-eyed in this one and I don't have the background on that but his mind was always sharp, no matter what kind of punches he took.
You ain't forgotten, ol' Dad, and neither is one of the things which fascinated him the most.
Alex Fraser painted this because he was specifically seeking the optical illusion in it. The fascination in it for him was he maintained there was a strong correlation between the effect of the illusion and artistic sensibilities in the viewer.
He would try not to load the question by telling people what he expected and he would ask visitors what they saw when they looked at it.
Note: don't look dead center at it but rather look off a bit to one side.
If after the above you see the image spinning then that was the key, in his view, to an indication of artistic sensibility.
As a younger man, he would have been pursued this with a research scientist's vigor but it was more a personal curiosity in later years. It's unknown if this has been pursued by other scientists and, in some ways, it's better not to know as this represents perfectly for my ol' Dad and what others may have done represents in other ways.
(Ed: so what does it do to the Silas?)
Spins like a fookin' child's top on a table and I can't look at it for long, never could.
(Ed: what is a top?)
Yer killin' me. Let me guess ... New School?
Here's a really Ancient School top but it's a fine example as the kid winds the string around it and the top doesn't look like much but teaches the little rotters multiple things: the kids need the patience to wind up the string to get the payoff. There has to be some physical coordination to use the string to get it spinning.
It's a simple toy but there are deep physics which the kid will absorb at an elemental level. The top demonstrates center of gravity, centrifugal force, gyroscopic motion, and many exceptionally important concepts but they don't come off a blackboard, the kid just spins the top and watches them in action.
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