Me And Stephen Hawking

Many years ago I saw a small documentary of Stephen Hawking's growing up in Britain. Most of the
best scenes came during the times when Professor Hawking was being a prankster.
He and his friends seemed to grow up playing. That's the childhood I always thought every person
should have. I so admired him and the film's producer for recreating those scenes, and for seeming to
so cherish them, though science had already defined the professor's life.
What prompted me to see the film was that I had come late to the reading of  A Brief History of Time.
I knew the book was immensely important because I'd heard of the professor's work. So when I realized the film would show one week-end at The Detroit Institute of Art Film Theater, I felt compelled to see it, as it was 20 minutes then from where I lived.
At the start I thought the scenes and depictions were mainly quaint. I appreciated the stories, but didn't feel I was getting to somewhat know more of one of the most important minds in human history.
Then the filmmakers showed a clip of Professor Hawking's mom. She was talking through a slightly
exasperated laugh, saying something to the effect of, 'I asked Stephen when he graduated school to go to university, Stephen, I can understand if you didn't want to be first in your class, but did you have to
come in dead last?'
At that moment I got the picture of Professor Hawking I've had ever since. He must have been an
incredibly generous, an incredibly good-natured person.
Imagine a kid with that intellect not graduating with a reputation among the other children as a know-it-all, not gaining a reputation of being prone to correct teachers, not striving to skip a grade, not striving to 'place' in the hierarchy of class grade point averages. 'Staggering, I thought...simply an
astounding personality.'
The film took us into the start of Professor Hawking's university classes.
He remained a guy who wanted to do his requirement's, then get to partying.
Interviewers asked his friends from that time when they understood his capacity?
Most of them chuckled. 'We knew a short time after our university classes started. We had been up all
night for days working on our physics assignments. Several of us working together couldn't figure out
all the problems. Stephen came up to the room where we were studying, complaining we were taking to long. He was ready to party. He claimed he had figured it all out ages ago. Then he showed us the solutions he'd found. We knew then he was much, much different than any of us, or anyone we'd
ever known.'
The interviewer asked these other guys if they thought back then perhaps the work had been easier
than they first imagined.
Each one of the professor's friends answered firmly they knew what they were working on had been
very, very challenging. The film clearly showed each of Professor Hawking's friends experienced
an early realization of an amazing intellect in their presence soon after their college careers began.
The evident admiration and affection they showed for their friend and his abilities came through in this film.
I couldn't be satisfied even with both the book and the film under my belt. I needed to hear from this
unusually human and brilliant person.
So I got this bright idea to write to Professor Hawking's publisher. I did that.
Soon, I got a letter back from Professor Hawking!
I had written to him about admiring that he had so faithfully tackled the difficulty and time-consuming nature of his work.
That's when I found how effortless the professor's sense of humor was.
He said he loved his work so much he could never complain about it. He imagined he must be a bit like a sex worker who was happy with her profession.
I couldn't have imagined all those years ago the professor would be still working in 2014.
And I am tremendously surprised the professor is a bit older than me.  I don't know why I was recently puzzled when the new film came out, and I realized Professor Hawking was born in 1942.
He has had a more productive life than so many of us with no motor neuron problem at all.
I don't have all the professor's books, but I struggled through 'A Briefer History of Time'.
I understand maybe 100 pages of On The Shoulders Of Giants, but I love it anyway.
I have to make it one of my life's missions now to find that letter!