Frank said the State Department

Frank said the State Department background checks were very thorough. People came to inquire about various workstudies, sometimes years after they had graduated so that Frank was often at a loss. I said we should a start a file for each workstudy to record and hoard memorable capers, crises, scandals and other telling minutia. "What if the kid worked a mere twenty hours the entire year," asked Frank. "We'll write, Subject was faint of heart," I said. He liked that. He said, "I like that."

It was important to write down nicknames. Frank rarely called anyone by his or her name. He still calls me KK, though marriage has reduced my initials to KN. Once we had a fellow named David. To distinguish him from the other David in his employ, Frank called him David the Mystic, because he would come and go without explanation. Frank signed his emails, FJB. His friends knew him as Bud. He also addressed himself as Bud, as in, “No, Bud, don’t do that,” when he did something wrong on the computer. Many years ago in the Midwest he'd worked for Beacon Blankets. There he answered the phone, "This is Bud at Beacon Blankets." He delighted in the alliteration. "Warmth without weight," was the slogan of Beacon Blankets.

It happened that I was crossing campus with him one summer day. The power outages were all the rage at the time. On the bridge over Amsterdam, he looked south into the wavering haze of the skyline and shook his head. "The city is under siege," he said. "Con Ed and all that jazz. What a way to run a railroad."