My Wellesley High School Years.

I attended the public High School in Wellesley, MA. There I got enthused about using a computer for anything and everything. The first computer program I wrote rendered 3D shaded images of 3D quadratic surfaces (like spheres and ellipsoids) using a Teletype printer to print out the images. Also, in High School, I wrote software that used statistical techniques to break substitution ciphers and some ciphers used in World War I.

In High School I played flute -- never all that well, but with a fine tone anyway – with the school orchestra and band. (Later I learnt a bit of jazz, in part from Randy Roos.)

I also tried out in High School for the ski team, but I remember trashing the ski gates badly. But already then I was skiing quite a bit with my father, including late spring skiing at Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington. My first run there, at about 14 years of age, resulted in an 800-foot uncontrolled fall, over very steep terrain, but did not result in any injury. I skied there many times after that, but I never again took a fall like that.

Over the years, I have run into some of the Wellesley High School classmates. I ran into Doug Smith at Kestral Institute, about 10 years ago when I had a collaborative research project on algorithm derivation with Kestral Institute. He is doing very well. By the way, it happens that he got a PhD at my department at Duke in the early 1980s.