Thursday, November 16, 2006

Audio History Topic Outline

In thinking about topics for his audio history, I am struck by the remarkable breadth and depth of my father’s life. What follows is just a start, a fraction of the possible topics on which I know he could expound (and propound). And any one of them probably could serve for many hours of discourse. I expect to add to it myself and from your suggestions.

  • Personal Life

    • Growing up in Kansas and Nebraska

      • His parents
      • His sisters, Liz and Margaret
      • Going on sales trips with his father
      • Schools, public and private
      • Growing up in the depression
      • Bankruptcies, foreclosures and sheriffs’ sales
      • Contour farming (which my grandfather helped to pioneer)

    • Joining the Navy in WWII.
    • Attending the University of Chicago

      • Initially studying anatomy
      • Switching to anthropology (why?)
      • Friends and girlfriends
      • Listening to jazz and gospel music

    • Saint Louis

      • Washington University
      • Arthur Hess (my uncle)
      • Meeting and marrying my mother
      • His mother-in-law (my maternal grandmother)

    • My parents’ first apartment
    • Moving to Homewood, Il.
    • Adopting me

      • Heartbreaking delay (Thelma and Al Dalhberg’s party)
      • My epilepsy (seizures) and medical issues

    • Sabbatical in Berkeley

      • Model trains (discovered Ace Hardware)

    • Moving to Flossmoor, Il.
    • Adopting my sister, Jennifer.

      • Sailors knots on her crib

    • Nicknames for his children: JCH/JC, BDH/BD/Pooh[bear]

  • The offer from UC Berkeley
  • Leaving Illinois and moving to Berkeley
  • Errata

    • Politics (why a Liberal)?

  • Professional Career

    1. Early Man—writing the Time Life book.
    2. History of the L.S.B Leakey Foundation

      1. Who was Allen O’Brien and how did he meet my father?
      2. Gordon Getty’s role
      3. The Early Years

    3. Research and Fieldwork

      • The multidisciplanary approach (genesis of)
      • Isimila Tanzania
      • Ambrona and Torralba Spain (the early years)
      • Omo Research Expedition
      • Ambrona and Torralba Spain (the later years)
      • Turkey
      • Other places...


  • Friends, Colleagues and Students

    • Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey
    • Leslie Freeman

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Brian,
Thanks for getting us thinking about this. I would love the chance to hear Clark talk about his early days when he was publishing his ideas on the evolutionary significance of the Neandertals. Those papers, when he was so young, pre-PhD I think, have been really important in the field - and I have often wondered what the young man was thinking as he worked up those ideas - whether he had any inkling of where they might take him, or the influence they might have etc.
Susan