Norman Dolloff
Norman Dolloff had Cutler's boundless enthusiasm and energy. As
Cutler's student, Norman devised a way to mine copper without having
to dig for it—50 years ahead of his time; he did not live to
see it happen. He too was a human being. He and I had
an affinity rare among men. He taught geology, like Cutler
Shepard later taught Metallurgy. We went out in the field and
saw for ourselves the grand works of nature, eroding, reprocessing,
remelting the earth into lava, eroding and depositing anew. He
honed my professional insights and taught reality—let theory
catch up and explain later—this is the way it is.
He was that rare friend who could laugh at himself as easily as
he laughed at me, which he never hesitated to do. His enthusiasm
was boundless. He also had a rare confidence in his own psyche, and
those of others. In a discussion one time about something arcane,
I recall him saying to me, "I could teach you that in 5 minutes",
and thinking, "how can you possibly be so sure?" It was
not arrogance, he really could teach. His Socratic method blended
with drill and experiment and not a little improvisation did wonders
for me. Norman, more than anyone, motivated me scholastically. My
only straight A quarter came after learning his methods. That is
because learning is the flip side of teaching—I learned to
ask myself the same questions he asked in class or the field.
Only once did I ever see him flustered. It seems that on a field
trip to an ancient quarry to examine some fossils, the owner suddenly
appeared and demanded to know what was going on. (Norman had only
made this field trip a hundred times and he assumed the area was
public domain). He explained that, but the owner promptly kicked
us off his property anyway. Never one to dodge the tough stuff, he
broke a leg on a similar adventure.
Norman was also intensely human, loved to play with his kids. He
always had a smile and pleasantries. Norman was always available
for mentoring—via the Socratic method. He introduced me to
the two-way street that lies at the heart of any successful mentor-protege
relationship—it always has an important emotional component.
He taught me something else. Once you have the fundamentals of how
to think and reason all you really need from there is the vocabulary
of the field—every test he ever gave had a vocabulary section
and he was a stickler on definitions. And so it was in transferring
to Stanford. The new words of metallurgy quickly became friends in
the fabric of science, the fabric that Norman built. In effect, I
had completed two majors in four years, geology and metallurgy. But
I have never practiced geology except in passing or to keep a "know-it-all" honest.
Norman's Geology left an imprint on my psyche—nature. Nature
is at once ever so marvelous yet so difficult to understand. It is
no wonder superstition preceded legend, which preceded logic, which
preceded the experimental sciences in our human development. How
it all came into being is so vastly beyond me, I shall never understand.
But I am part of it — thinking, feeling and acting part of
it. Whoever the creator, however our universe came into being, I
am one of its products. From these foundations, our core values and
governance arise. Our governance makes logical, practical and emotional
sense. They define who we are without having to invoke any higher
authority. Their realization is not complete and they may not be
suitable for everyone or even anyone else. But in their practice
I find myself and my faith in myself as well as in nature—whatever
it ultimately means.
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