What do you care what other people think?

Richard Feynman - I'm going to write about the Physicist Feynman another time. For now, I just want to present some excerpts from the book "What Do You care what other people think" which is mainly about the  person - Richard.

*****

Richard Feynamn learns that Arlene (his girlfriend) is diagnosed with the fatal Hodgkin's disease and is just about to tell Arlene who was still unaware of that. 

Doctor : No, no! We don't want to upset the patient. We are going to tell her it's glandular fever. 

RF : No, no! We have already discussed the possibility of Hodgkin's disease. I know she can adjust to it.

All his family members work on him, asking him in horror " How can you do such a terrible thing?" 

RF : Because we have made a pact that we must speak honestly with each other and look at everything directly. There is no use fooling around. She's going to ask me what she's got, and I cannot lie to her!

Finally his little sister breaks him down and he agrees to lie to Arlene that she's got glandular fever. 

He goes to the hospital to see Arlene. When she sees him, her face lights up.

Arlene : Now I know how valuable it is that we tell each other the truth! They are telling me I have glandular fever, and I'm not sure whether I believe them or not. Tell me Richard, do I have Hodgkin's disease or glandular fever? 

RF : You have glandular fever.

Arlene : Oh! Fine! Then I believe them.

About a week later, she calls him over to her place.

Arlene : Sit down. All right, now tell me, do I have Hodgkin's disease or glandular fever? 

RF : You have Hodgkin's disease. 

Arlene : God! They must have put you through hell!

Feynamn writes - I had just told her she has a fatal disease, and was admitting that I had lied to her as well, and what does she think of? She's worried about me! 

RF : I'm sorry. I feel awful.

Arlene : I understand Richard. Just don't do it again.

A few months later RF announces to his family that he wants to get married. He writes :

Then they very carefully explained to me that when I promised to marry Arlene, I didn't know the situation. Everybody would understand that I didn't know the situation then, and that it didn't represent a real promise.

I never had that feeling, that crazy idea they had that I was getting married because I had promised it. I hadn't even thought of that. It wasn't a question of having promised anything; we had stalled around, not getting a piece of paper and not being formally married, but we were in love, and were already married, emotionally.

**

Once during his graduate studies at Princeton, Arlene sends him a box of pencils to use. They had in gold letters the words " Richard Darling, I love you! Putsy". He called her Putsy. Since he absentmindedly dropped pencils around he cut off the writing on one of them to see if he could use them. 

Next morning he gets a letter from Arlene "What's the idea of cutting the name off the pencils? Aren't you proud of the fact that I love you? What do you care what other people think? ...Pecans to you.. Almonds to you ..'Nuts' to you..

He writes - So I had to use the pencils with the names on them. What else could I do?

**

RF goes to Los Alamos to assist in the development of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer arranges for Arlene to stay in the nearest hospital, in Albuquerque. The pranks she played resulted in notes from the army censor like "Please tell your wife we don't have time to play games around here." He writes - 

I didn't tell her anything. I liked her to play games - even though she put me in various uncomfortable but amusing conditions from which I could not escape. 

**

Arlene asks him to cook them steaks on the lawn outside the hospital that was right on Route 66, the main road across the United States. 

RF : I can't do that! I mean with all the cars and trucks going by, all the people on the sidewalk walking back and forth, I can't just go out there and start cooking steaks on the lawn!

Arlene : What do you care what other people think?

So, RF cooks steak every Saturday/Sunday on Route 66, wearing an apron that has "BAR-B-Q KING" written across it. 

**

For Christmas, Arlene has an idea of sending cards to everybody, that said Merry Christmas, from Rich and Putsy.

 RF : I can't send these to Fermi and Bethe. I hardly even know them!

Arlene : What do you care what other people think?

So, they send them.

By next Christmas, RF knows the giants Fermi and Bethe pretty well and they are all very friendly. Arlene has these cards that say "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". Just when RF thinks they'll go fine for everybody,

Arlene : Oh, no, they won't do for Fermi and Bethe and all those other famous people. 

She gets another box of cards that have the usual stuff and then : From Dr. & Mrs. R. P. Feynman. RF writes - 
"What's this formal stuff, Dick?" they laughed. They were happy that she was having such good time out of it and that I had no control over it. 

**


(After Arlene died)


I must have done something to myself , psychologically. I didn't cry until about a month later, when I was walking past a department store in Oak Ridge and noticed a pretty dress in the window. I thought "Arlene would like that," and then it me.


*******

Current Song :

Every rose has its thorn by Poison

Current favourite lines :
"I shall leave you now with the man I knew, the man I love intensely for the strength and tenderness he demonstrated in the way he lived" - Aleida Guevara March in the preface to The Motorcycle Diaries