Newsletter
Volume 28 | 2005 | Number 1
Yankee Og
By Abigail B. Calkin, Ph.D.
I don’t remember the first time I met Og, but his life seems to have been woven with mine since before I was born. His father and my uncle were friends in the 1920s, active together in their Brown University Phi Gamma Delta fraternity alumni work. While I didn’t hear stories of Og when I was growing up, I got quite a reaction from my aunt and uncle when I showed them my University of Kansas Ph.D. graduation photo with Og in his crimson robe. “Oh! We knew his father! That boy, with his sandy-colored hair, was quite a handful! His younger brother, Bradford, however, was a bit quieter and better behaved.” Yet again, after his World War II service, he was a patient at Cushing Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts, the town where I grew up. My mother and another aunt were Grey Ladies at Cushing during and after the war. Recently, I learned our lives had woven together even earlier in New England history when our ancestors journeyed together across the Atlantic in 1620.
Knowing Og professionally has always seemed a continuation of my own New England roots and goals—educate yourself well, strive high, never, ever give up, and do something to make this world a better place for others.
In 1967, I began to use the most powerful tool to change human behavior: the Standard Celeration Chart. One of the beauties of this frequency-based chart is that learning never stops. I still learn and change my teaching based on charted information whether it’s helping students learn to read better, helping people change how they interact with others, or teaching children and adults to lead healthier lives by changing their inner behaviors. As 2004 draws to a close I realized what happened to my thoughts and writing when, this year, I lost two dear, long-time friends who had impacted my life greatly. My writing charts showed a dramatic deceleration or cessation in my writing behaviors last winter and this fall when each of them died. Without the chart, I’d only be able to give some rambling verbal description such as feeling very sad.
When studying with Og, he and his wife, Nancy, and my husband, Robert, and I began to get together socially; Robert even worked for one of Nancy’s businesses for a while. While I enjoyed Og for his creativity, boldness, brilliance, wit, and humor, Robert enjoyed him because he was so down to earth. On our return to Topeka from one of our visits to their Stull ranch for the afternoon and a late dinner, we commented how comfortable it was to be with them. The next day, as I told a mutual friend of being at Og and Nancy’s the day before, she said, “Don’t you find them a bit odd?” “No,” I replied. “We finally found another couple like us.”
It is my honor and privilege to continue my friendship and charting relationship with Og not only as I serve as chair of Og’s Archives Committee but also as I stand on his shoulders to continue my own work.
Goodbye dear friend, co-worker, and teacher.