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Selected English readings for recitation: Richard Feynman
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When I became a pledge they had various ways of hazing. One of the things they did was to take us, blindfolded, far out into the countryside in the dead of winter and leave us by a frozen lake about a hundred feet apart. We were in the middle of absolutely nowhere--no houses, no nothing--and we were supposed to find our way back to the fraternity. We were a little bit scared, because we were young, and we didn't say much--except for one guy, whose name was Maurice Meyer: you couldn't stop him from joking around, making dumb puns, and having this happy-go-lucky attitude of "Ha, ha, there's nothing to worry about. Isn't this fun!"
We were getting mad at Maurice. He was always walking a little bit behind and laughing at the whole situation, while the rest of us didn't know how we were ever going to get out of this.
We came to an intersection not far from the lake--there were still no houses or anything--and the rest of us were discussing whether we should go this way or that way, when Maurice caught up to us and said, "Go this way."
"What the hell do you know, Maurice?" we said, frustrated. "You're always making these jokes. Why should we go this way?"
"Simple: Look at the telephone lines. Where there's more wires, it's going toward the central station."
This guy, who looked like he wasn't paying attention to anything, had come up with a terrific idea! We walked straight into town without making an error.
Exerpt from: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman, as told to Ralph Leighton
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