Meeting Adolf

November 30, 2012

We had called together the Great Powers for an afternoon of meetings. These dreary events are essential if our Center is to keep running well. But they do drag down one's spirits, especially on a chilly November day.

Nothing restores my cheer better than one of those small moments that make the Center special.

The meetings had adjourned. A Center Officer was lingering in our lounge. We were exchanging the idle pleasantries of bodies worn down by tense work, when it occurred to me. I took off down the hallway in search of my quarry. She was standing at the water cooler, near the photocopy machine, talking. I interrupted:

"Would you like to meet Adolf Grünbaum?"

"He's in the building?!"

"Yes, he's just down the hall."

Moments later, I was making brief introductions. Serife took a seat next to Adolf and they began to talk.

"This is a great moment for me," she began. "A paper of yours was the first one I read in philosophy of psychiatry."

I left and returned briefly with my camera. A while later Serife ran into me in Cheryl and Eric's office. Her eyes were beaming wide.

"He's so nice," she said.

John D. Norton