Learning With Ollie In The School Of Basics
I first encountered him in 1963. I was a college freshman, and he was a crusty, white-headed old engineer teaching the most basic entry-level course. Whispers from the older students warned us: Ollie Gatchell would strike fear in our hearts.
And so he did, making that initial engineering course a baptism by fire. On the first day of class, he didn't bother introducing himself. Instead, he instantly solidified his reputation with a challenge: "OK, you prospective engineers. Let's see who can figure out how to get the lead into his pencil." Nobody could. Those mechanical pencils were easily fumbled, but we did learn how to use them--thanks to the demanding Ollie Gatchell.
Knowing the necessity of discipline and order in engineering work, he despised inefficiency and imprecision. One class period found us at a window watching a crew from the power company replace a pole. "Come see some guys who do know what they're doing," he demanded.
Electronic calculators were just a dream, and the slide rule was the Swiss Army knife of the engineer's toolbox. But slide rules have no decimal points, and rookies can easily miss the right answer by a factor or 10 or 100 or even more. "Real engineers don't lose decimal points," Ollie Gatchell lambasted. Then drawing from years of experience, he demonstrated.
As practicing engineers, we would surely encounter confusing problems where we couldn't find our way to a solution. But the basics would be our North Star--if we had learned them. It was Ollie's job--one that he took seriously--to get us oriented.
But not everyone comprehends the significance of the basics. To them, the theoretical and flowery are almost magical. We met such a person recently.
In propounding his analysis of the first presidential debate, he accused Mr. Bush of having a line of sweat above his lip. And who would want a president who might sweat during negotiations with China? Case closed. Ollie Gatchell would have cringed at such touchy-feely conclusions.
The idealistic young man also favored vesting more authority in Washington. When questioned on his logic, he coolly explained. "There are just a lot of things we don't understand down here. Someone in Washington needs to tell us what to do."
When I ponder the goings on inside the Washington Beltway, what I don't know isn't so troubling. It's what I do know--or at least strongly suspect. Ollie's white hair would have bristled. Could bureaucrats do better than one who had mastered the basics? Hardly.
Like the dinosaur, the slide rule is extinct. But when we lose our way in foggy uncertainty, we still have a North Star. The basics endure, thanks to those like Ollie Gatchell who had the heart to teach a bunch of fumble-fingered teenagers how to put the lead in our pencils.
Copyright 2000 James McAlister
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