Expectations And Respect

I'm now getting to the age where old friends are starting to appear in official places. Here is Rich Blakeslee, who was in the office next to mine in graduate school:

Rich Blakeslee is a senior atmospheric researcher at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. On behalf of the Marshall Center, Blakeslee conducts research at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC), the Huntsville-based research facility cooperatively managed by Marshall and Alabama research universities.

The write-up continues in the same deferential vein. It's funny to see Blakeslee written up in such a respectful manner. Goodness knows he was the least pretentious person I knew in graduate school.

Rich once talked about Thanksgiving dinner when he was a kid. He didn't get to sit at the big table in the dining room - that was for the adults. Instead, he sat at the fold-out card table, with the kids.

As an adult, he had trouble adjusting to people's expectations that he should eat at the big dining table. It was all wrong: his place was at the card table, with the kids.

It's hard, sometimes, meeting expectations.