Remarkable Marty

Martin Marty's incredible life was presented so well by Kerry Temple and photographer Dan Dry ("With a Grin and a Prayer," August/98). Marty is a genius whom I first met when we were students at Swift Hall, and I would like to underscore his powerful founding of the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics.

Alumni friends remain great but they are crucially important when life takes an unexpected turn-as in my case when I was the victim of a severe assault resulting in permanent brain injury. Thanks to God-and to Marty, who still keeps in touch with someone rebuilding his life.

Lloyd W. Putnam, AM'56

Rochester, New York

The writing on the wall

On the second Web page of the article about Prof. Martin Marty, PhD'56, the accompanying photograph shows an inscription on Marty's office wall, written in an Asian language (Japanese?). Could you please tell me what the inscription says?

Peter A. Pancione,MBA'90

Chicago

The wall hanging is in Chinese, and it translates as "Discovery is our business." (An alternate translation is, "Creative effort is our goal.")-Ed.

Pink with pride

First, a hearty congratulations to the University for having an outdoor convocation ("Convocation al Fresco," August/98). It must have been wonderful. I well remember mine, June '68: Bobby Kennedy was buried during the ceremony; everyone had a transistor radio. I don't even remember who spoke-no one was paying attention. The temperature was astronomical. My proud father, in a nice new white shirt and tie, perspired so much that the red dye from the Rockefeller cushions was absorbed, leaving him with a permanently pink-stained shirt. I've often wondered how many other people through the years at U of C convocation sacrificed shirts or dresses for the cause of their children's graduation.

Second, a request for those of us who haven't been around in many a moon. On page 11 ("Chicago Journal") of the same issue, you show what looks like part of a nice map showing an astounding number (to me!) of buildings not there when I was. How about printing a two-page spread of the whole map so the old-timers can get a feel for it? Nearly the entire block bounded by Greenwood, 55th, Ellis, and 56th was a parking lot in the '60s. Court Theatre, where I spent many a warm evening outdoors, was in front of Hutchinson Commons, and virtually nothing existed west of the buildings on Ellis Avenue.

James J. Hogan, PhD'68

Montreal

Readers with Internet access can see a campus map at http://www2.uchicago.edu/ UC/maps/. For a paper copy, contact the Magazine.-Ed.

The I's have it

As a faithful reader of the Magazine and a devoted follower of Jessica Abel's Artbabe comic, I was surprised to see a rather egregious error in the final panel of your survey of Hyde Park hangouts ("Chicagophile," August/98): It is, I am afraid, Cirals'-not Cyral's-House of Tiki. That quibble aside, the page was (as always) a terrific reminder of the sights and conversations of Hyde Park and the U of C.

Which brings me to this Tiki memory. A couple of friends and I, all of us between our third and fourth years in the College, had gathered in Madison, Wisconsin (who knows why), and, finding ourselves with nothing to do on a Friday night (Madison), we headed to the East Side multiplex to catch a Gene Hackman movie called The Package. Beginning in Germany, the film's story ultimately made its way to Chicago, where Hackman, playing the leader of an elite counter-terrorist outfit, has arranged to meet his friend at a bar. The establishing shot shows a darkened street, but one particularly gaudy neon light stands out: Cirals' House of Tiki! My friends and I exchanged glances; the same thought was all on our minds: Would they really show the inside, or would it simply be a Hollywood soundstage? Cut to: "Tiki Ted!" we all shouted-frightening the cheeseheads around us-as the taciturn (he let his Hawaiian shirts do the talking), pipe-smoking man behind the bar appeared before us, 15 feet tall and surrounded by the Polynesian splendor to which no cinematographer could ever do justice.

When I return to campus for my 10th reunion this June, I will certainly make the easy stroll to Jimmy's, but when things on 55th Street wind down for the night, it's nice to know, courtesy of Ms. Abel and the Magazine, that it remains-as always-Tiki time.

A. Vaughan Leyde, SB'89

Des Moines, Iowa

Cirals' is what the sign says. -Ed.

Spitting into the wind

If the Council on Civil Society ("Investigations," August/98) had included a historian among its 24 prominent scholars, politicians, and activists, it would not have cited Baltimore Oriole Roberto Alomar's spitting at an umpire as an example of what it fears is a growing incivility among Americans.

The fact is, that incident (which occurred in 1996, not last fall as reported), was an aberration not only in Alomar's personal conduct but also in the relations between ballplayers and umpires in general, which are the most civil and serene in the game's history.

Had they known anything about the good old "civil" days when tobacco juice was sprayed, shins were kicked, and fists were swung as often as home runs were hit, the council might have looked elsewhere for a more accurate defining example of the decline of civility-say, for example, at the demonstrators of the 1960s who thought it gloriously patriotic to spit at cops from their moral high ground. Perhaps some members of the council could have offered firsthand testimony.

Norman L. Macht, PhB'47

Easton, Maryland

Macht is correct in noting that Baltimore Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar was ejected during a September 27, 1996, game against the Toronto Blue Jays, for spitting in umpire John Hirshbeck's face.-Ed.

World Wide Web wars

As a former student at the U of C in the '40s, I rubbed my eyes in astonishment at the two-page article on adding a Web site for alternative weeklies ("Under Construction," August/98). Brian Hieggelke, AB'83, MBA'84, is portrayed as a visionary who is adding to mankind in opening a new Web site that will feature advertisements to the great uninformed out there. My God! Look at the Internet. The last thing it needs is more advertising. Have I been asleep? Aren't there any U of C graduates out there who are working to improve the Internet? Why not feature some of them?

Rosaline Katz Herstein, X'44

Evanston, Illinois

Another view of rebellion

In her letter (August/98), Ann Morrissett Davidon, X'47, argues that the eminent historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, AM'44, PhD'50, is wrong in ascribing the ills of our age to the rebels and turmoil of the '60s. But not all the youth were rebelling, and Davidon is wrong about the purpose of the Vietnam War. After the partition of Vietnam in the mid-1950s, a million of the Vietnamese people "voted with their feet" by leaving the communist North for the South, where there was some attempt at representative government.

The U.S. attempt-in which I played a small part-to resist the attacks of the North Vietnamese finally failed, because of U.S. media distortions of that effort and want of proper civilian management.

Davidon also attacks the Reagan years of accelerated military spending. That was an attempt to contain the Soviet buildup, and ultimately it succeeded, with the Soviets giving up any effort to expand communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the USSR, and the Russians giving up their grip on the Eastern European countries (the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.). The primary cause of the rebellion and violence of the '60s was the TV- and media-augmented decline of civility and their "cataclysmic images of violence."

Finally, Davidon says, the Pentagon budget has remained "inviolate"; actually, it has declined steadily since the Gulf War.

Harold L. Hitchens, PhD'59

Aurora, Illinois

Orthodox omission

I am writing in response to "Acts of Faith" (June/98) by the Rev. Sam Portaro. Although the article was a well-written portrait of the expression of spiritual life on campus, I take issue with the fact that the Orthodox Christian Church was not mentioned at all as having a presence at the University.

Although the purpose of the article was not to specifically detail the demographics of religious life on campus, such information was included, and the omission of our presence is distressing. Six years ago, our diocese established and has maintained service to an Orthodox campus fellowship at the University. The ministry to Orthodox Christian students has been meeting bimonthly at Calvert House thanks to the generosity of our friends at the Roman Catholic campus center. The Rev. Nicholas Jonas has served as chaplain for the past four years. Although not "full- time" on campus, Father Nicholas's thriving ministry certainly merits mention where the "Lutheran, Baptists, and Unitarians devote part-time clergy and lay leadership ...."

Additionally, our presence should not have been difficult to ascertain, since the diocese remits payment to the University to be listed among the various campus organizations. Your magazine's neglect in this regard is most disappointing, especially as the ancient yet living spirituality of Eastern Christianity is a wellspring for many Christians of other faith traditions, not to mention the high profile our church carries in the city's ecumenical and inter-faith community.

Demetri Kantzavelos, Chancellor

Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago

Romance and recombination

Another U of C pairing: In January 1975, I was in my first year of the U of C's Medical Scientist Training Program. Essentially the first year of med school, it included a variety of basic science courses.

Among them was medical microbiology, organized by the redoubtable Alvin Markovitz, professor of microbiology. The lecture portion was a blazing fast tour through the world of pathogens, with the virology component delivered by the always inspiring, always enigmatic Bernard Roizman, chair of the Committee on Virology.

Mixed in among us med students was an assortment of graduate students, the truly experienced of whom earned the privilege of being teaching assistants in the lab portion of the course. Leader of this pack was one Barbara Ann Zehnbauer [SM'77, PhD'79]. For several weeks, Ms. Zehnbauer presided over the medical students learning the arcane art of identifying bacteria by trying to make them grow on culture media spiked with various nutrients and indicators. Then, we were put to the test. For our final examination, each of us was issued a vial of unknowns and given a couple of weeks to sort out the mess.

On the appointed day, we gave our reports. Since "Buchman" was close to the beginning of the alphabet, I cheerfully reported my results-namely that I had a pure culture of some obscure microbe-to Ms. Zehnbauer.

Ms. Zehnbauer found my performance wanting, in that she had personally prepared each vial, and took pains to assure me that I had indeed been issued not one but three different bacteria. Moreover, she advised me that the course required me to identify two of the three microbes correctly. "Fail. Next student."

You may well imagine my state of mind (Fail? Me?) as I stood there hearing the next several students give the correct recitation. Then, oddly, there was another failure. Several more sterling performances. Another failure. A pattern was emerging. I inquired of Ms. Zehnbauer precisely how she had prepared the test vials (she had mixed the cultures together several hours before distribution) and also inquired about the identity of the missing bacteria.

Calmly (such a short distance from the lab in Culver Hall to Regenstein), I tore off to figure out what had happened to her grand design. A few references clarified the problem-the bacterium I identified had produced a toxin that killed off the other two bugs.

I chose to communicate directly with Dr. Markovitz, the course director, by letter. Using the common courtesy, poise, and control characteristic of first-year medical students, I politely suggested that the teaching assistant, Ms. Zehnbauer, was at best marginally competent. It is possible I may have suggested that she be replaced, but the letter's precise contents have (fortunately) been lost. At any rate, Dr. Markovitz passed the (unsanitized) letter on to his star Ph.D. candidate, namely Ms. Zehnbauer.

In fairness to Ms. Zehnbauer, I must relate that the versions of the story diverge somewhat at this point. She recalls the letter as constructive, to the point, and the basis for a new experimental protocol for the next class. My recollection differs. I do believe that she was somewhat distressed because I do not recall her speaking to me for several weeks thereafter.

In the spring our paths crossed once more-near the tomatoes at the Hyde Park Co-op. Not knowing quite how to handle the unexpected meeting, I mumbled something about having dinner together. Despite the fact that she was clearly getting dinner organized for someone else, and despite a long and somewhat unnerving glare, she accepted.

Dinner went "okay," which was fortunate, because over the next few months, both she and I began the research phase of our Ph.D.s: she working on cloning a bacterial gene and me trying to unscramble aspects of herpesvirus DNA. At the time, one could not simply purchase restriction enzymes, those marvelous bacterial products that allow one to cut and splice DNA. No, one had to grow the bacteria, lyse the cells, and purify the enzymes, an exercise requiring a week or more spent in a room specially maintained near freezing. This was not conducive to preparing many different enzymes, so wise professors encouraged their graduate students to swap the genetic reagents.

Needless to say, our research projects, although quite separate, became increasingly interdependent on the other's ability to produce the needed reagents. Put differently, the more time we spent in the cold room together, the more time we could spend out of the cold room together.

In the fullness of time, she completed her Ph.D. and I finished the MSTP. I was scheduled to go off to a surgical residency at Hopkins and she to a fellowship in Madison, Wisconsin. We parted good friends, a little sad but looking forward to our lives, etc.

Parting was probably the silliest move we have ever made. By August, Dr. Zehnbauer had been to visit in Baltimore, and we married as soon as my schedule as a surgical resident would allow-18 months later.

We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary last March. A few months before, we had brought our most successful experiment in recombinant genetics to Hyde Park. Rachel, 11, had asked to see where Mom and Dad had met. As we reminisced about "how it was," marveling at the changes that had occurred around our old haunts, Rachel decided that the Henry Moore sculpture "Nuclear Energy" was far more interesting than "some old building." But she did indicate an unexpected desire to return, if only for the pizza.

Timothy G. Buchman, SB'74, SM'74, PhD'78, MD'80

St. Louis

Love on the hoof

As I was reading the letters in the August/98 issue, I was reminded that I had not annotated how my spouse [Sophie Thoness Friedlander, AA'43] of 55 years and I met at the University. In 1941 I was a senior in chemistry taking quantitative analysis. A very pretty young freshman, a friend of my lab partner, regularly stopped by to see him. Fortunately for me, I was in the lab more often than he. Within a few months, we went on our first date-attending the livestock exposition at the Chicago stockyards, a regular annual event during those prewar years. While not very romantic, it was highly educational. By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, we were going to parties together. Within eight months we were engaged, and before two years went by, we were married.

I joined the Manhattan Project at the University at about that time, and within another year we both followed Enrico Fermi to Los Alamos and spent the rest of World War II on the A-bomb project. After the war, I returned to the University to complete my Ph.D. in chemistry and to begin a family and a career in industrial chemistry. The youngest [Ira Friedlander, AB'75] of our three children chose to return to the University for his education.

Herbert N. Friedlander, SB'42, PhD'47

Gulfport, Florida

The economics of happiness

You have asked about how we met our spouses at the U of C. I would be proud to recount our meeting. Close to Pearl Harbor Day, 1944, I walked into a small restaurant on 57th Street. Two and one half years earlier, I had suffered disabling wounds in the Coral Sea Battle. The Navy retired me as a lieutenant. That year, I came back for my senior year in economics, a member of the first GI Bill classes.

Two freshmen-June Arnold [Lindstrom, AB'46, MBA'61], who sang with me in chapel choir, and Phyllis Riggio, whom I'd earlier helped in math-sat at a table. Another freshman, Elaine Murdock, whom the others had introduced in passing a week before, sat across from them. I sat down by Elaine, in the only empty chair. Later, I found out they were waiting for another economics student, George Hilton [AM'50, PhD'56]. I'd taken his seat.

All turned out splendidly. Elaine [X'46] and I started dating and married two months later. We still enjoy marriage, which is approaching 54 years, and eight kids ranging from 52 to 39. When we had our fifth, the U of C Industrial Relations Center, where I worked as a research associate, took me off the productivity project, moving me to the economics project. It did not help. We had three more, but failed to reach cheaper by the dozen.

For several years, Elaine also worked for the University. Her most interesting duty was as alumni secretary for the Law School.

Richard S. Harrison, AB'49, MBA'50

Clarksville, Tennessee

Plain speaking

One of the consolations of having endured U of C winters is the belief that Chicagoans speak plainly and engage thought; that to be one of them was worth tribulations. The June/98 Magazine, however, left me wishing I'd gone to UCLA. In "Citations," we learn that the Oakland School Board caused controversy by requiring students "to acknowledge the vernacular of their African-American students." Is this a parody of "The Streets of Laredo"-"I see by your language that you have a vernacular," or the other way around? Then there is the endless concluding sentence, which has scholars comparing African-American English "to other variations...because of their [whose, dammit?] concurrent [when?] development and common syntactic features, challenging linguists to look harder [than what?] at the role played by social factors in its construction."

Is there a national crisis of lazy linguists? What do social factors in construction have to do with the Oakland controversy? By the way, are there languages constructed without social factors? Is there some cutting-edge new work, combining the insights of Noam Chomsky and Marcel Marceau?

Tom Blau, AM'68, PhD'72

Fairfax, Virginia

Do bell ringers ring a bell?

T his is a plea from the mother of a 1976 graduate. The Autumn/75 Magazine contained an article about the Mitchell Tower bell ringers. Our daughter was president of the group at the time, so I have treasured this issue, which included her name and photo, for 23 years.

A few months ago, I decided Lisa [Kunnath Muglia, AB'76, PhD'83] should have custody of this treasure. As fate would have it, in the course of the exchange the issue has been lost. I'm hoping-begging, really-that an alumnus/a might have a copy he or she might spare. I have tried used-book dealers from Massachusetts to California without success. If you can help, please write me at 1338 Hillview Road, Homewood, IL 60430, e-mail gprescot@mail.idt.net or call collect 708/957-1856.

Mary Jane Kunnath

Homewood, Illinois

Respondez s'il vous plate

I am an antiques dealer and own a set of 12 University of Chicago Spode plates, each with a different picture of a campus building. They are dated 1942 or 1943, and I would like to sell them. They are in mint condition. For a photo and more information, please call 703/237-5711 or e-mail douglas_johnson@ccubedcorp. com.

Doug Johnson

Falls Church, Virginia

The Magazine invites letters on its contents or on topics related to the University. Letters must be signed and may be edited. Write: Editor, University of Chicago Magazine, 1313 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail: uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu.