to another and I ended up in graduate school at the University of Chicago, once again, sort of on a lark, without at all being sure that it was the right thing for me.
What did your parents make of this decision?
My Dad, especially, was not pleased. My Mom supported almost everything I ever did. She believed in me and affirmed me from early on, in almost all of my choices. After my senior year, I was working back in Sandusky. Around the beginning of August, my dad and I talked
Dad: So Ken, what are you going to be doing in the fall, again?
Me: Don’t you remember, Dad, I’m going to graduate school at the University of Chicago?
Dad: And what are you going to be studying there?
Me: Don’t you remember, I’m going to get a PhD in Philosophy.
Dad: You’re going to do what? I thought you were going to be an engineer.
Me: Dad, I gave up engineering my junior year. You remember that don’t you dad?”
Dad: Yeah, I remember. You dropped engineering and you picked up that Great Books major. I told your mother we shouldn’t let you do that. But she said, he has to make his own choice. But you told me at the time when I asked you what you would do with that that maybe you’d go to law school. What happened to law school?
Me: I don’t want to be a lawyer Dad. I want to be a philosopher.
Dad: What do philosophers even do? Stand on a street corner and philosophize?
Me: No dad… they teach, they write. It’s what I love to do.
Dad: What am going to tell my friends?
Me: Tell ‘em the truth.
Dad: What do you want me to say, “My son, the Philosopher.” How’s that going to sound?
