“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: Adventures of a Curious Character

My father and mother happened to come up that morning to see how their son was doing in Boston, and the fraternity kept putting them off until we came back from being kidnapped. I was so bedraggled and dirty from struggling so hard to escape and from lack of sleep that they were really horrified to discover what their son looked like at MIT!

I had also gotten a stiff neck, and I remember standing in line for inspection that afternoon at ROTC, not being able to look straight forward. The commander grabbed my head and turned it, shouting, “Straighten up!”

I winced, as my shoulders went at an angle: “I can’t help it, sir!

“Oh, excuse me!” he said, apologetically.

Anyway, the fact that I fought so long and hard not to be tied up gave me a terrific reputation, and I never had to worry about that sissy business again—a tremendous relief.

I often listened to my roommates—they were both seniors—studying for their theoretical physics course. One day they were working pretty hard on something that seemed pretty clear to me, so I said, “Why don’t you use the Baronallai’s equation?”

“What’s that!” they exclaimed. “What are you talking about!”

I explained to them what I meant and how it worked in this case, and it solved the problem. It turned out it was Bernoulli’s equation that I meant, but I had read all this stuff in the encyclopedia without talking to anybody about it, so I didn’t know how to pronounce anything.

But my roommates were very excited, and from then on they discussed their physics problems with me—I wasn’t so lucky with many of them—and the next year, when I took the course, I advanced rapidly. That was a very good way to get educated, working on the senior problems and learning how to pronounce things.

I liked to go to a place called the Raymor and Playmore Ballroom—two ballrooms that were connected together—on Tuesday nights. My fraternity brothers didn’t go to these “open” dances; they preferred their own dances, where the girls they brought were upper crust ones they had met “properly.” I didn’t care, when I met somebody, where they were from, or what their background was, so I would go to these dances—even though my fraternity brothers disapproved (I was a junior by this time, and they couldn’t stop me)—and I had a very good time.

One time I danced with a certain girl a few times, and didn’t say much. Finally, she said to me, “Who hants vewwy nice-ee.”

I couldn’t quite make it out—she had some difficulty in speech—but I thought she said, “You dance very nicely.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s been an honor.”

We went over to a table where a friend of hers had found a boy she was dancing with and we sat, the four of us, together. One girl was very hard of hearing, and the other girl was nearly deaf.

When the two girls conversed they would do a large amount of signaling very rapidly back and forth, and grunt a little bit. It didn’t bother me; the girl danced well, and she was a nice person.

After a few more dances, we’re sitting at the table again, and there’s a large amount of signaling back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until finally she says something to me which I gathered means, she’d like us to take them to some hotel.

I ask the other guy if he wants to go.

“What do they want us to go to this hotel for?” he asks.

“Hell, I don’t know. We didn’t talk well enough!” But I don’t have to know. It’s just fun, seeing what’s going to happen; it’s an adventure!

The other guy’s afraid, so he says no. So I take the two girls in a taxi to the hotel, and discover that there’s a dance organized by the deaf and dumb, believe it or not. They all belonged to a club. It turns out many of them can feel the rhythm enough to dance to the music and applaud the band at the end of each number.

It was very, very interesting! I felt as if I was in a foreign country and couldn’t speak the language: I could speak, but nobody could hear me. Everybody was talking with signs to everybody else, and I couldn’t understand anything! I asked my girl to teach me some signs and I learned a few, like you learn a foreign language, just for fun.

Everyone was so happy and relaxed with each other, making jokes and smiling all the time; they didn’t seem to have any real difficulty of any kind communicating with each other. It was the same as with any other language, except for one thing: as they’re making signs to each other, their heads were always turning from one side to the other. I realized what that was. When someone wants to make a side remark or interrupt you, he can’t yell, “Hey, Jack!” He can only make a signal, which you won’t catch unless you’re in the habit of looking around all the time.

They were completely comfortable with each other. It was my problem to be comfortable. It was a wonderful experience.