Gee, apparently it helps that I never saw Tukey, at least not in person! I heard about Tukey from (1) Tukey's lemma, equivalent to the axiom of choice, (2) co

Gee, apparently it helps that I never saw Tukey, at least not in person! I heard about Tukey from (1) Tukey's lemma, equivalent to the axiom of choice, (2) convergence and uniformity in topology, (3) stepwise regression, (4) the statistics of power spectral estimation, (5) exploratory data analysis, and (6) the fast Fourier transform. So, with (1)-(6), I didn't pay attention to how he looked! But when I wanted to go for a Ph.D., I wrote him at Princeton, explained where my career had run into his work and asked if there was education for a career in such things. I got back a nice letter from G. S. Watson saying, "Yes" and claiming that Princeton was one of the best places for such work. I did apply to Princeton, and did get accepted, but I went to Johns Hopkins instead (my wife was already in her Ph.D. program there so that we wouldn't have to move!).