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Scent of Light Episode
by Ken Norton
Asking for Help
Original Broadcast October 13, 2019
Mp3 Player
The audio file above is the spoken word recording
without background music provided to Radio KOWS 92.5 FM broadcast of the
Scent of Light episode for insert into the Radio Spotlight Magazine
with host Andre Marc.
Transcript
In this episode on the Scent of Light I will speak on
Asking for Help.
I often find this hard to do. I was so instilled with
doing one's best at a task that I put the option of asking for help as a
last resort. My pride would be hurt to realize the task require more than I
could provide. However, I also realize that my pride is involved which is
dependent on just what I know, and I know from experience that others have
provided key parts of a puzzle I have attempted to solve.
When I was a student working on my bachelor’s degree
in engineering at San Jose State, I had come to an understanding of the
Vietnam War and of my unwillingness to participate in it. In the summer of
1970 after the University was shut down by California's Governor Regan
because of the student protests against President Nixon’s ordering the
invasion of neutral Cambodia, I began to despair about my decision to get a
degree in engineering for fear I would be assisting the War Machine. I
prayed, I asked for the help for guidance. I happened upon a biography of
Albert Einstein and upon reading it I was so impressed at his stands for
conscience, such as being one of only 19 academicians in Germany to sign a
letter to Kaiser Wilhelm protesting his push for war in 1914, that Einstein
became my hero. This gave me new hope that I would be able in any field to
be a man of conscience. However the gift from that asking for help continued
to be operative.
A couple of weeks later I met an older gentleman in a
suit and tie on the way home from my first class of the Fall semester. I
nodded my head in respect as I passed him coming the other way and he in
return asked if I knew him. I replied that I did not know him and asked for
his name. “My name is Doctor William Herman’s, he answered, “and I taught as
a professor in the Foreign Language Department until my retirement 5 years
ago.” He then asked if I could type and when learning I could he asked me to
help him on his book manuscript. I asked him what the subject was and he
said, “Einstein and the Poet. I knew Albert Einstein for 34 years.”
My newly discovered hero was almost turning flesh. I
was standing before a man who knew Einstein. What is the probability of such
an encounter, I thought. Of course I said yes. He then walked a block down
the street with me to show me the apartment house in which he lived and then
we parted.
The asking for help in this situation was not limited
to my asking. Professor Hermanns told me that his dear friend of over 20
years, Mabel Stonehill, had passed away a couple of weeks before and he was
so despondent that he considered moving back to Europe. He was asking for
help in guiding him into the future. It turned out that both of us asking
for help created a relationship between us both that would last 19 years
until his death in 1990.
I received the benefits of gaining a mentor who also
prized the inner voice of conscience and expanded my education from the
sciences into the humanities. And my mentor gained a student and
collaborator in editing and preparing his manuscripts for publication.,
including in 1983 the book Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man
thirteen years after first meeting him.
Last week I shipped 10 boxes of my mentors writings
and memorabilia to San Jose State University's Martin Luther King, jr
Library Special Collections as a donation. The archive now has an
institutional home, making William Hermanns works more accessible to
scholars and students.
We both asked for help when our future prospects
looked dim.
This is Ken Norton on the Scent Of Light. You can
contact me via Ken at KennethENorton.com. The Scent of Light episodes are
archived on the web at
kennethenorton.com. Thanks
for listening.
About the Author and Producer
Ken Norton earned his master's degree in Materials Science from Stanford
University as the Vietnam War was ending. During that time Ken served as the
personal assistant to a poet/sociologist Dr. William Hermanns as he prepared
his writings for publication, exposing Ken to not only the sciences but also
the humanities and comparative religion for making conscious and
conscionable choices.
Ken is a regular contributor to Radio Spotlight Magazine with his episodes
on the Scent of Light.
