My first job as a librarian staffer in the rare book room of the Stanford library might have been the easiest. As no one ever came into this room, located hidden in the stacks, I could do homework. That was brilliant of the admission people, for I was as minority and needy as you could get. Having come from Hawaii--and my English professor wondered what language we spoke there--from McKinley High School, where everyone came from "poor" families, on a full scholarship with tuition waived, they knew that my social and financial standing compared to classmates was going to be a problem. I believe I was the only Japanese in the incoming class of '58, I doubt if there was one Black student, and no one in those days knew what a Hispanic was.
The job forced me to study 10 hours/week at a pay rate of $1/hour. They even slotted me in from 7PM-9PM during the weekdays to not affect meals, classes and weekend social life. This first year gift from the university was crucial for my survival.
Then again, perhaps an easier one was in 1976 when I joined 20 faculty members selected to spend three months on the Orion Project at NASA Ames Research Center. The state of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in those days was: Are we the only planets in the Universe?
So 17 in the group were asked to design an interferometer to detect an extrasolar planet. I was one of the lucky 3 who could do whatever we wanted. I chose to work with Nobel Laureate Charles Townes, who was at Cal-Berkeley, and had written a Science paper on whether planetary atmospheres lased. You can read all about this in Chapter 4 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity, and here is the Introduction.
Thus, the easy part was that because Townes was 43 miles away, I did not have to even show up at work. I might have seen him twice all summer. I was living on the Stanford campus in married student housing, close by my freshman dormitory, Wilbur Hall. This was the year of the summer Montreal Summer Olympics. I rented a 36-inch TV, which came in this gigantic box, filling up my living room. Montreal is 3 hours ahead of Palo Alto, so there was considerable telecasting of the event from the morning. As I needed some exercise, I went golfing three times/week at the Palo Alto Golf Course. Cost was reasonable if you walked. Also took a wine-tasting course on campus that summer. Several years later, the Stanford Wine Collection was offered to alumni. That bottle shows the Old Chem building, where I took all my chemical engineering courses. I not only got paid for doing all this, but NASA covered expenses.
One of my memories from that summer is that on 20July1976, Viking One sent the first photo from the surface of Mars. It came in, line by line, and on the stage was Carl Sagan giving a play-by-play description of what was happening. With the Jet Propulsion Lab, we were the only ones viewing this event, before the photo was released to the media. We could have seen aliens.
I had a chance to talk to Sagan, and to quote:
Then, along came Carl Sagan, who was denied tenure at Harvard in 1968 and was at Cal-Berkely when I was attending school at Stanford. Sagan joined Drake at Cornell and remained on the faculty until his death in 1996, already more than two decades ago. I had several interactions with him, including assisting in initial funding for SETI.
Here are further details of Sagan in DC, after SETI got a Golden Fleece Award from Senator William Proxmire.
Honestly, my easiest job ever could well be what I am doing now, for during the past two decades I have continued to maintain an office on the Manoa Campus, and early on spent time there writing my three SIMPLE SOLUTION books and 100+ Huffington Post articles. I don't get paid anymore, but do receive an ample state retirement income, plus free parking. What do I do now? Cogitate, do some minor mentoring, enjoy lunch (I have a room with a wine refrigerator and Sony sound system), still continue a daily blog...and I'm now in year eleven. My final challenge is the Blue Revolution. Anyone know a billionaire seeking a monumental legacy? I already donated my penthouse to the UH to initiate this effort, and give myself until 2022 to catalyze a $150 billion effort to Save Planet Earth and Humanity, for that would mark half a century at the University of Hawaii.
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