My kids are mine: they both are near sighted, brown-haired, and
bull-headed!
From:
HAPS-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:HAPS-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken
Saladin
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 7:01 PM
To: HAPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [HAPS-L] Stuff our students remember...
Good for a Monday afternoon chuckle, Chet. Did you independently verify that
type A just to be sure they weren't telling you what they thought you wanted to
hear? ;-)
I tell my students a similar story about my redheaded daughter. Neither my wife
nor I am a redhead, but our next-door neighbor at that time was. I hasten to
add that so were my wife's father and my grandfather, but now that you bring up
this blood type story, I wonder how many of my students have gone away with the
impression that I've been raising my neighbor's daughter as if she were my own?
Ken
I just finished a summer session and had this interesting
conversation with a colleague who was teaching biology at the same time I was
doing my Intro. to Human Anatomy. She was discussing blood types when one
of her students says:
"Did you know that Dr. Harbut has a son that
really isn't his?".
"What?" says my colleague (Connie)
incredulously .
"It's true" says the
student. "Last semester Dr. Harbut told us that one of his
kids is type O and he's type AB and there's no way that kid is his"
The rest of the story: After going through all the blood
types and the genotypes that produce each I tell them how when my first one was
born I asked the pediatrician what his blood type was and, after looking through
her files, she says, "He's type O". I pause and then respond
"He can't be", and then proceed to tell her that I'm type AB. I
can still see her trying to remember her genetics. I then act as
though we're back in the recovery room (27 years ago) and tell my class that we
didn't have a pool or a pool cleaner, no milkman, and besides, she (my wife)
wasn't going to find anything better than me anyway...at least, not in those
days (What's the line frrom Camelot? "Humility is for the humble?").
Anyway, I then proceed to tell my students that they RECHECKED his blood type
and sure enough he turned out to be an A. That of course, is where the
student probably stopped listening and was certain that I'd come home with a
kid who really wasn't mine.
I've been telling that story for what, maybe 25 years now, and as Connie said,
just think of of all the former students out there who came away with the same
impression as her student.
The son in question is now in grad school at UPenn ("Pharmacology, drug
interactions, etc., not Pharmacy" as he hastens to add). I must
admit however, that given his brains I sometimes wonder if he really is my kid.
Just thought you might enjoy this story.
Chet Harbut, Ph.D.