North archway connecting Dabney and Gates

Every year Caltech holds a reunion for its alumni. The motive is one part service and fellowship and three parts greed. The real purpose of Caltech as an institution is to raise money to perpetuate itself. That is not a bad thing because Caltech is a fine institution. But it has blinders: what doesn't help it isn't of much importance. It has a large organization devoted to this, about 70-80 people, each specialized in a small area, e.g. recent alumni, alumni likely to die, rich alumni, etc. We've met some of these people and they are nice, but as already said, focused.

On the other hand, there are the volunteers, mostly members of the Alumni Association. They are mostly willing to help raise money but, by and large that is not their major interest They want to maintain contact with Caltech for old times sake and their old school buddies.

Reunions consists of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and dances. And Seminar Day. This for some is the best part: it is a day of one-hour talks, one after another. They offer a chance to hear about some scientific developments from their creators, some of the best engineering and scientific talent in the world.

It was with thoughts like the above that we considered the 2003 Reunion. Gerry has worked as a fund raiser for the Alumni Association, so isn't entirely negative about it. But the way things are done does irk him. If we lived reasonably close to Pasadena we'd probably attend every Seminar Day. But we don't. This year the conjunction of events meant that we had several reasons to be in California so we penciled it into our schedule. (As an aside, we do have a schedule. We don't live without a clock ticking away. There is alway a visa about to expire or a promise made that makes us move on..) This meant that we tried to get to California by May 1; we missed that date by a couple of days.

Our visit and return to Caltech encompassed a Friday and a Saturday. Gerry went over on Friday morning for a walkabout by himself and returned to pick up Jan for the evening Dinner. Then on Saturday we came back together for Alumni Seminar Day.

But let Gerry tell the story:

---

Reunion Day as told by Gerry

Guest Parking Garage Receipt

Alumni Day Regisistration Badges

On Friday morning the first thing I did was to park our car. This is remarkable because it isn't so easy. The number of cars in the world must have tripled or quadrupled in the last 25 years and the number of parking places has not. When we met in Nancy, France, it was easy to park a car: there were spaces and no meters. On our return in 1994 there were meters and no spaces. In my student days at Caltech parking was easy: my first two years I didn't have a car. After my mother got tired of chauffeuring me (and maybe because my parents thought the chance of my causing a major accident had decreased) I got a car for my last two years. In those years the Caltech campus was half its present size, its staff must have been less than half of what it is now (how many "development officers" (fund raisers) did Caltech have then?) and there were no real controls. Now it is, like France, the inverse. Space is limited, controls are needed, so I had to get a permit and then park in a multi-story parking structure.

California Pharmacy on Lake Avenue, Pasadena

I started my day by taking a look off campus. I walked half a mile west to Lake Street for a peek at the place where I ate half (one-third?) of my dinners when I was in my freshman (first) year. At that time there wasn't enough dormitory space on campus so I lived off campus, as did several dozen other Techers and near daily walked to the California Pharmacy and ate at its lunch counter, which is long gone. There I first met upperclassmen who seemed so much in the know to me. There I first learned about the alternative, anti-establishment newspaper, "The Little K". Also on Lake I saw that it has maintained and even advanced its position as an up-scale shopping destination.

Freshman Physics Lecture in Bridge Laboratory

Students at freshman physics lecture

Back on campus I was looking around, wandering from building to building reading notices when I came across a notice in West Bridge: "Class in sesssion; please enter on third floor." Being so ordered I went up and sat in the last row of a physics lecture. Memory is too poor to say if it is exactly the same classroom in which I took Freshman Physics and in which Richard Feynman taught his famous class two years later. But the layout was the same.

A difference was right across the aisle from me: in my day girls were much farther away. We had to go to Scripps or another girls college to get a reliable supply of dates. (A few weeks later, in San Francisco, I would meet one of those Scripps girls, Linda Lyons, now all grown up. She says that the atmosphere was too closed in for her; after a year she left for UC Berkeley. That was much more her scene.)

Pre-dinner Cocktails in the Garden in front of Caltech Atheneum

These little episodes over, I returned to the Hollywood Inn, picked up Jan, and we went to the 40th Reunion dinner of the Class of 1963. Attendance was about 50% higher than for the 30th dinner, two full tables being required this time. The dinner was held in the Atheneum, pictured above, with a small crowd waiting to go in. It was a satisfactory piece of fish with "free" wine; that's why it cost so much and resulted in some going home very drunk. It wasn't one of the great meals we had in LA. The conversation was pleasant, but we were clearly the outsiders: Gerry knew and remembered half of the people at our table but was in current contact with only one of them. Most of the others, however, were obviously in closer contact.

---

Seminar Day

Caltech President, David Baltimore

Saturday was Seminar Day. We got there in plenty of time and registered. We could have been there earlier if we had skipped the so-so breakfast at our Alvarado St Motel and come over for the nice spread that awaited registrees. Too bad that we didn't "read the manual."

After breakfast we set off to the first of our selected six seminars chosen from the twelve or so scheduled. Each is presented twice so it is possible to hear most of the ones of interest. But we would rather have them spread over two days and go to all of them. Our proposal on this matter was politely listened to by a development staffer and then, we suppose, ignored, based on her body language. Certainly Gerry's email offering to be a volunteer working on Seminar day was never answered.

We got several chances to see Caltech's President and Nobel prize winner, David Baltimore (pictured above, welcoming Seminar day attendees). Once, standing near a group that was talking with him we even briefly considered joining in. But unless one has a very important agenda or truly is the only one around a noted figure, it is hard to justify butting one's way into a conversation.

Five of our six choices at Seminar Day pleased us greatly. To get the worst out of the way, we thought that a discussion of company cultures by a management professor was below sophomoric. On the other hand, the presentation of "How Flies Fly" was terrific. Sharp research and a sharp presentation. We'd tell you all about them, but it is easier for you and us to go buy Scientific American or at least the Caltech quarterly, Engineering and Science. It's a tradition that after the initial presentation they are sharpened up even more and then the best published.

Seminar Day barbeque dinner on Olive Walk

Noon was lunchtime and we had a nice box lunch. That actually was a more satisfying meal than the Class Reunion dinner the night before. In additon we met a couple of more recent graduates, 25 years the juniors of Gerry, and exchanged perspectives. Too bad they are already fading from memory. The tables looked much like the above photo, which is actually taken of the evening barbeque, that we skipped to wander about on our own over to Gerry's former dorm, Lloyd House.

---

JPL Day

Sunday was open house at JPL. Jan was in the late stages of a cold and stayed home while Gerry went off to see what was new.

Laid-back JPL-er

Famous NASA Astronaut

There were plenty of booths but none overly excited Gerry. As we had been to the NASA Johnson Space Center (Flight Control) in Houston not two months earlier, that was to be expected. Above is shown one of the many exhibitors at the JPL open house. There was also a job fair and Gerry tried out for a new post. The picture below was taken at his "interview".