Sid Bacon

It was a privilege for me to see Sid this past March.  I was so hoping I could visit with him before the AAS meeting, and I started planning for this at least a month in advance, hoping also that I could help out in some way.  But as we sat in Cincinnati on a snowy tarmac waiting for my connecting flight to take off, I was terribly concerned that I would miss my chance to see Sid.  Fortunately, the plane eventually got de-iced and we took off.  It was a tremendous relief. I ended up reaching Arizona on time and spent several hours with Sid at the Piper Cancer Center while he received various fluids, including chemotherapy.  It was a treat to meet the nurses and doctors that Sid had talked about in his journal.  I was also lucky that Sid needed a ride home so I got to spend more time with him.  In between Sid insisted on taking me out to lunch and Andrew Oxenham joined us.  I can't remember the name of the restaurant, which was within easy walking distance of Piper, but I was stunned and delighted to see a menu that included matzo ball soup, sour and half-sour pickles, and enormous corned beef sandwiches, a true New York style deli in Scottsdale Arizona!  Sid was reluctant to try the pickles, but I introduced him to the concept of the half sour and encouraged him a little bit, and he either liked them or did a really good job pretending.  Ever the scientist, Sid quizzed Andrew and me on the latest research from the ARO meeting in February.  By the time I dropped Sid off at home in the mid afternoon, I had decided that the day was one of the highlights of my whole life. It would have been reasonable to think that this might be the last time I would see Sid, but as I got ready to leave it felt like two friends saying good-bye for the day, not forever, and that's the way I wanted it to be.  

When I was approaching tenure, I had submitted a very important paper to JASA.  Sid was the Associate Editor.  I don’t remember much about the review process, but I do remember vividly that at the end, I got into a sticky situation because JASA was going to charge me page charges because they estimated that the paper would be over 12 pages.  I was pretty sure it would be under 12 pages, and I didn’t have any way to pay page charges at that time.  The tenure clock was ticking, and I had an email exchange with the Editor in Chief that did not go well.  Sid pulled in a favor from someone in the editorial office.  They mocked up the paper and showed that it would come in just under 12 pages, and it was published with due haste.  I also got tenure, and I suspect Sid had a role in that as well, but that is another story.

We remember your hospitality on the island of Oahu in 1988. The Acoustical Society was meeting there in November that year, and we took the opportunity to make it our honeymoon trip (having wed the previous month). You invited us to your hotel room for a special toast in our honor, a gesture we have always appreciated. 

It's an oldie but a goodie: I was walking to Altadena Middle School from my house, in the spring semester of sixth grade, when I'm accosted by two men, one older, one younger, INSISTING that I get into the red Honda stick shift so that I don't waste any energy walking to school. That energy needed to be devoted to the track meet to be held at the rival middle school that afternoon, they pressed.  Giving Sid and Dan Bacon a "no thank you, really it's fine" was not going to cut it. I was getting in that car! Well, thanks to Sid and Dan's insistence that I "save my legs," I managed to break 6 minutes in the 1600 meters that afternoon. Thank you Sid, for your support of my early running career and for so many other pleasant memories. Coming over to you and Cathy's house was and is such a treat. 

Sid, Cathy and I are sitting in the living room in Claremont.  Sid asks me if I've ever seen a French kiss.  I had not.  So he leans towards Cathy - their lips touch and Sid whispers with a very fake French accent "Bonjour! Oui! Quelle huere est-il?"