CCP
I had avoided the visit as long as I could. An old professional colleague of mine, Dr. Charles Clayton Perry, had recently been moved into an assisted living facility and I didn't know what to expect. The facility is located no more than two miles from our townhouse in Cary and I had promised myself that I would visit him last weekend. Then Monday, followed by Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Finally, this morning I asked the CFO if she would go with me and she did.
We visited with him for about an hour and carried on a mostly one-sided conversation. For anyone like him with limited memory recall, it is very difficult to drive or even sustain a dialog. Accordingly, I selected topics of discussion that I knew from past experience would be of some interest to him. As I excused myself to leave on the pretext of tiring him, he replied, "Oh, no. I'm enjoying this."
I asked the CFO after we left if she thought he ever accept me as myself and she thought probably not.
So, all you folks at the Skunk Works who worked with CCP, please go visit him. (Marti can give you the directions.) He is an old man with only a wife for family. He may not know who you are and probably will not even remember that you visited him. Just remember that, as Samuel Johnson said, "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." Dr. Perry did a great deal for us and and it's the least we can do for him in the winter of his days.
"Well, hello you old coot!"We found Dr. Perry, an octagenarian and now frail in both body and memory, to be in good spirits. His general appearance was much better than it was the last time I saw him a year, or so, ago. I few test questions, however, revealed that memory recall was spotty, at best. He remembered, for example, that he had earned a private pilot's license but could not recall the make or model of his airplane (Piper Cub). Yet, when I mispronounced Enrico Fermi's name, he was as quick to correct me as ever!
"Who are you?"
"Dave Lineback"
"No you are not. I know Dave Lineback and you're not him!"
"Maybe it's the long hair and beard you haven't seen before."
"No, you're not him."
We visited with him for about an hour and carried on a mostly one-sided conversation. For anyone like him with limited memory recall, it is very difficult to drive or even sustain a dialog. Accordingly, I selected topics of discussion that I knew from past experience would be of some interest to him. As I excused myself to leave on the pretext of tiring him, he replied, "Oh, no. I'm enjoying this."
I asked the CFO after we left if she thought he ever accept me as myself and she thought probably not.
So, all you folks at the Skunk Works who worked with CCP, please go visit him. (Marti can give you the directions.) He is an old man with only a wife for family. He may not know who you are and probably will not even remember that you visited him. Just remember that, as Samuel Johnson said, "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." Dr. Perry did a great deal for us and and it's the least we can do for him in the winter of his days.
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