MIT student, I forget what his field of study was. So it is quite possible he
had some sort of derangement. I'm pretty sure he was off the scale intelligent
but he was of the kind who was barely functional in society.
There was a phrase used on guys like that (there were some girls too), "no toad
sexing." It mostly referred to an admonition to just avoid them, minimize
interaction especially in "that" way.
I recall too this girl who was a year ahead of me At Purdue in the aero Astro
dept too. She was very smart but not very socially adept. I vaguely knew her,
she me, we had the occasional conversation and attended events, etc. So I had
been at mit maybe a week, I was walking up the main steps and literally ran
into her as she had her head somewhere and was paying no attention to what she
was doing. This before texting but basically same behavior. I see it is her
and say hi to her, how are you, etc. she looks at me like I have 3 heads and
turns around and runs off. Seriously, like I was a mugger or something. She
was working on her Ph.D. In the aero Astro dept, I was nominally enrolled in
that dept too, and the AA offices were just down the hall from where I camped
so I would see her somewhat frequently, similar behavior. Weird as hell. She
went on to be a shuttle astronaut, flew several times. She died of breast
cancer a coupla years ago, apparently just had her mother besides work
colleagues. Kinda sad.
--R (sent from my miniPad)
On Oct 7, 2016, at 9:18 PM, archer75--- via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
wrote:
The guy sounds like a functional autistic.
Wasn't that scenario pretty common during the anti-Vietnam era?
> From: Floyd Thursby
> I drove from Cambridge to Orlando straight through once, then back a week
> later. I put a notice on the ride board to see if anyone wanted a ride, pay
> some gas money, some guy calls and says he did. So he got dropped off at an
> exit on 95, he had no particular plans just wanted to go to Florida. He had
> a small backpack. OK, I will pick you up RIGHT HERE next Saturday at 10AM or
> whatever, if you aren't here, you're ridin the dog back to Boston. OK he
> says. On the 20-some hour ride he said about 6 words the whole time, which
> were an odd oblique second-degree abstraction reference to a billboard we had
> passed about 50 miles before, in the middle of the night. After about 15
> minutes I was able to work it out, and said something in reply, he just
> grunted. I think he was a genius-level functional idiot.
>
> Stop to pick him up, he was there at the gas station. Gets in the car and
> the stench was gagging me and my other friend. Turns out he just hitchhiked
> to wherever was near there, down to the beach, and stayed under a bridge for
> the week. Met some bum who was living there too, they ate oysters or mussels
> or something ("seafood" he said) they picked from the creek. He had a great
> time. Next exit I stopped at a gas station, got out a rag and a bar of soap
> I had in my bag, told him he was to go in and bathe and if he still stunk he
> was finding his own way home. He was in there a little while, came back with
> his change of clothes from the backpack on (he wore the same clothes all
> week), and fairly tolerable. He made no complaint of it, it was like it
> never happened. Again, he said about 6 words the rest of the whole ride
> back, then thanked me for the ride and walked off when we got back to campus.
>
> --FT
>
>
>> On 10/7/16 4:14 PM, Curt Raymond via Mercedes wrote:
>> Theres sort of a challenge among a certain kind of person around here to
>> make it all the way to Miami in one shot. Its a 24 hour drive and I know
>> several people who claim to have done it. I think they're idiots...
>> -Curt
>>
>> From: Dan Penoff via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
>> To: Mercedes List <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
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