“Well, my grandfather raised me and I think he thought it was a weird, probably not good thing, but he always wanted the best for me and sort of indulged me. Also he was impressed with anything institutions did. So Williams College and this professor wanted me to do this, although I of course applied, and so that counted for a lot to him. And then in the fall Gaudino made a point of inviting the parents up. And I think for my grandfather, who was highly respectful of institutions, to be invited to visit Professor Gaudino and spend some time with him, this was a good thing. He was a schoolteacher in New York City schools for 37 years. He taught shop, wood shop. He and most of his brothers were carpenters. We met the parents, everybody did, because he’d invite them into his living room when we’d have some kind of session and so the parents would get a sense of what was going on, and of course he was the ultimate charmer and putter-at-ease. And at the same time he was someone who was also honest with parents so I think he wanted them to feel both confident and yet also understand in some depth that, well, there’s disease in India. I think there was at least one parent, maybe even a couple, that were particularly concerned about disease. And one of the parents, Andy Hurst, his father was a doctor, a medical doctor, and he had taken a sabbatical in India back years before. And I think there was a little bit of a tension there. However, the father was also asked by Gaudino to actually lecture us on Indian disease and what we might expect. I mean, he knew stuff so it was useful and he probably knew more than the medical staff at Williams but at the same it kind of personalized and brought the family back into this kind of group experience.

–Dale Riehl '72