Rocknocker: A Geologist’s Memoir. George Devries Klein

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      During the Spring Semester, 1953, I took petrology, structural geology, second semester physics, second semester calculus, and a seminar in Marine Ecology. Again, Physics was a struggle although I did well when we reviewed optics and acoustics. Still, I earned a D. I did better in the other courses, earning a mix of B’s and “A’s”.

      The Marine Ecology seminar was basically a tutorial and I did well. The instructor, Dr. Haffner, gave me some interesting advice. He advised that when I started publishing papers, I should stop, reassess, and write a summary review paper and cite my own papers extensively. I discovered when doing so that more people read such review papers than the original detailed one.

      During spring vacation, we took a one-week field trip to southern New York State and the coal mining regions of eastern Pennsylvania, including a trip down a mine-shaft to examine underground operations. Prior to the spring field trip, we went on afternoon field trips in the Connecticut Valley. During every class before the field trip, Joe Peoples reminded us to bring hand lenses on the spring trip, which we did.

      The first stop on the spring trip was in the Peekskill Norite. After using our rock hammers to get samples, we peered at them with our hand lenses. However, “Doc’ Peoples was wandering around with a sheepish look on his face. He called us together and said, “Gentlemen, I have a confession to make. After haranguing you all week about bringing hand lenses, I left mine at home. Can I borrow one of yours please?”

      We traveled in two cars. I rode with Doc Peoples. On the way back from Pennsylvania, we drove past New York City to drop people off so they could take trains home to visit their parents. I rode to Middletown because my parents were in Europe. I used the time to inquire about how to develop a career in geology, what my options were, what would be required to get there, and above all, what it would take to be successful. He answered all my questions and gave me lots of good advice. It was a good mentoring session. Joe Peoples taught me not only valuable things I would not have learned any other way, but also how to develop mentoring skills in the future.

      After my parents returned from Europe they called. My sister, Marianne, was getting married in July to someone I had yet to meet. He was H. George Mandel, a Yale PhD in chemistry, who was an assistant professor of pharmacology at George Washington University Medical School. George was born in Germany. His father had been a director of the Deutsche Bank, but left in the late 1930’s. His parents lived in Scarsdale, NY, and were both pretty haughty and not the most pleasant people to know. Fortunately, Yale had rounded and humanized George Mandel and he was, in fact, a reasonable gent.

      I attended their wedding where Georges Mandel’s mother was trying to match me to some of the daughters of her friends. They were very high maintenance and didn’t interest me. George’s mother berated me on a regular basis but her continued efforts to pair me up always ended in failure, for her.

      That summer, I took a required geology field camp to learn geological mapping and field methods. I enrolled at Northwestern’s field camp because their course started in latest July and ended just before Labor Day. That enabled me to first accept a summer job as an engineering helper with the Connecticut Highway Department. The state was building a highway bridge in Middletown. My job was to stand next to a steam-driven pile driver, count the strokes and when the number of strokes reached six per inch, tell them to stop and go to the next one.

      Sig Franczak had a job with the contractor at the same work site so we ate lunch together and visited on weekends. One day, he walked on a cross-walk over an empty sewage holding tank. He fell, landed on his head and ended up in the local hospital. I visited after work while a Catholic priest was administering last rights. I explained to the nurse that Sig was Methodist; she notified the priest who left. Sig died that night. It was a great shock to all of us.

      I left in late July to join Northwestern’s field camp in Duluth, MN, where I rendezvoused with the two professors teaching the course and the other students. We examined the Keweenawan basalts along Lake Superior, went to the Hibbing open pit Iron Mine and reached Ely, MN after three days.

      There, we boarded chartered canoes and paddled and portaged our way to our first camp site. We mapped geology from canoes and bushwhacked inland to complete our maps. Because I had been a canoeing counselor, I helped instruct the other students on canoeing.

      The other participants came from a variety of universities: DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, University of Cincinnati, LSU, Franklin and Marshall, and Northwestern. The best prepared student was Bill Rush, who attended LSU. He spent the previous summer on an oil company field mapping crew. I learned a lot from him as well as the instructors, and was shocked to discover later Bill never submitted his final report.

      After completing the course, I returned to Evanston and met the department chairman, Art Howland. Northwestern had, at that time, a nationally-recognized team of three professors, William C. Krumbein (PhD, Chicago, sedimentology, geostatistics), Laurence L. Sloss (PhD, Chicago, stratigraphy) and Edward C. Dapples (PhD, Wisconsin, sedimentary petrology). I met all three because I planned to apply there for graduate work. Frank Hoodmaker warned me that Northwestern’s program was tough and he left and completed a Master’s degree at the University of Wyoming.

      Krumbein was busy so we talked briefly, Sloss talked with me but at the same time was busy drafting, and Dapples spent time rambling about his work. Perhaps I caught them at a bad time or perhaps they met many applicants so interviewing one more became a routine and boring exercise for them.

      I returned to Wesleyan and had two months, in addition to regular course work, to write my field camp report, draft the diagrams and submit it. I did with a week to spare and earned an “A”. Years later, at the 1958 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Ed Sullivan who graduated from Northwestern and took the course also, told me that I was the only one to earn an “A.”

      Wesleyan’s financial fortunes also suddenly improved. An alumnus, Davidson, bequeathed his fortune of $6 million. Davidson’s wife predeceased him and there were no children. The endowment suddenly doubled and Wesleyan’s expectations changed.

      During my senior year, I took a year’s course in statistics, a semester of Paleontology, a year’s senior geology seminar, a philosophy course and a year’s worth of credit to complete a senior thesis. I graduated with three other geology majors. They were:

      - Dana Schrader who became a Navy pilot and then flew for Eastern Airlines.

      - Tom Rogers, who earned an MS from the University of California, Berkeley, took a job with Gulf, was laid off, and then worked for the California Department of Mines.

      and

      - Lou Wilcox, who took a job with the Army Map Service, and later earned a PhD in geodesy from St. Louis University. Lou died in 1972.

      I lost contact with Dana and Tom.

      A week before graduation, we received our yearbooks which included a profile of the editors’ recollections of each class mate. Mine stated “Well-Assimilated Immigrant.”

      Graduation was held on a hot day. My family joined me. Joe People and his family hosted a reception for the four geology majors and their families. We then went to graduation where Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, delivered the commencement address.

      At the close of Commencement, the college President, Vic Butterfield, delivered his “Charge to the Class of 1954.” Starting with a quote from Alfred North Whitehead that “great ages are also dangerous ages”, Vic discussed how

      - the atmosphere in the USA changed with McCarthyism,

      - the American role in the world became more dangerous with the Cold War, and

      - so many of the world’s people increased their demand for freedom and well-being. He discussed also the raging battle of ideas of the time and closed his remarks saying,

      “These are the times for these forces (of moderation, justice, freedom) to speak out, if quietly yet very firmly.