We lost "The Professor" this week. The Professor was also my uncle, father to some of my best childhood friends and one of my biggest supporters of almost everything I did.
Growing up his boys were just enough older that I looked up to them and always wanted to "hang" with the cool kids. He would just shake his head and smile. I remember when he published a Math textbook I thought, how cool, my uncle is an author. The Gleason's were so cool.
Later, in high school his youngest was one of my best friends. We spent weekends together mixing friend groups and maybe getting in a bit of trouble here and there. Again, he shook his head and smiled.
He was a professor of mathematics at Bridgewater State so when I told him I was going there to pursue a Math degree he grinned ever so widely…and did not shake his head. He then immediately started plotting. No one could know who I was because he would never want there to appear to be any favoritism. He promptly changed his class lineup so he wouldn't be teaching freshman. I threw a wrench in that when I tested out of Calc 1 and Calc 2 thus starting my year in sophomore classes. So as I enter my Freshman year, there is my uncle "The Professor" and I couldn't tell anyone! I am perennially late and his classes were at 8 am. I'd be coming around the corner and he'd be telling one story or another about his boys that I knew was an exaggeration, and I couldn't tell anyone!
As the years passed, it finally became somewhat known who I was. he would mercilessly tease me and my roommate about our very large 80's hair saying he had never seen girls with big hair excel in Math as we did.
While he teased, he also supported. When I took Abstract Algebra my sophomore year and got a D on my first exam, I decided maybe I wasn't cut out for this he said nonsense, buck up and work harder. When I didn't know what I was going to do with a degree in Math, he said you can do anything, we've taught you how to think. I'm not sure I appreciated that then, but I do now.
He has left a legacy in his kids…
And his students…
We will miss you "Professor".
P.S. thank you @Briangleason for the pics. ❤️
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