The Mathematician and the Fundamentalist

At one time I lived directly across the street from a church officiated over by a fundamentalist minister who became concerned about my life in the hereafter. He told me grim stories about the lower regions and described the torrid horrors I might expect if I didn't snap to and change my ways by joining his church. One regretful day, in a jest that he completely failed to appreciate, I told him that I had no fear of the lower regions, because all the mathematicians and engineers who have gone there have undoubtedly remarkably improved the place with air conditioning and refrigeration.

Some time later I received the following item clipped from the Bangor Daily News, Thursday, January 8, 1970.

Too many engineers, I suppose, fooling around with the air conditioning. I do wish they would be more careful; they might spoil a good thing.

Moving to Gorham

Arrangements were made for me to spend a year or two assisting the Mathematics Department of Gorham State College, one of the units of the newly formed all-state University of Maine. Soon after the completion of the arrangements, a short two-column item, released by the public relations office of the University of Maine, appeared in the Bangor Daily News.