Discusses childhood and upbringing in Chicago, recollections of family members; involvement in religious activities as youth; attending Wheaton College, recollections of courses and social environment of Wheaton; early interactions with J. Laurence Kulp and Paul Gast. Transfer to Columbia University; early impressions of Lamont Geological Observatory; impressions of relations between Kulp and W. Maurice Ewing; recollections of conflicting interpretations of C-14 ratios in ocean water samples; impressions of Harmon Craig and Gerald Wasserburg; interactions with Columbia University geology faculty, including Walter Bucher. Impressions of graduate and undergraduate teaching at Columbia; recollections of Hans-Suess; impressions of relations between LGO geochemists and Lamont scientists in other fields; recollections of Heezen-Ewing tensions and Heezen presentations at 1965 meeting of the Second International Oceanographic Congress (Moscow); relations with Ewing involving promotion and tenure and impressions of Ewing's intellectual domination at Lamont; role as faculty senate member at Columbia University; recollections of proposed relocation of LGO; impressions of funding shifts involving oceanographic research, 1960s-1970s; recollections of experiences onboard Vema; recollections of Henry C. Kohler. Also mentioned: Thomas Aitken, Jacques Barzun, Michael Bender, Bobby Fischer, Tom Chapin, W. Theodore de Bary, Fred Donath, James Dorman, Charles L Drake, Walter R. Eckelmann, Rhodes Fairbridge, Arnold Finck, GEOSECS program, Bruno Giletti, Billy Glass, Ralph Halford, Patrick Hurley, John Imbrie, International Decade of Ocean Exploration [IDOE], John Knuckles, Norman Kroll, Polykarp Kusch, Devandro Lave, William J. McGill, Jack E. Oliver, Neil Opdyke, Philip C. Off, Arie Poldervaart, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Robert R. Shrock, Boris Spassky, Sterling Forest [NY], Arthur N. Strahler, Lynn Sykes, Taro Takahashi, Manik Talwani, Charles Tucek, Harold C. Urey, George Wetherill, Joe [J. Lamar] Worzel.