My heart goes out to the wonderful Platt family.

I found many of the memories that you posted to be quite touching. The note from M. J. Davis regarding our classmate Tory was particularly poignant. Here are a couple of memories of Joe that I’ve always held dear:

At a holiday reception at Garret House, probably in 1978 or 1979, Joe and Jean remembered me and, with great joyful laughter, Joe reminded all within earshot of the summer that I used to ride my motorcycle across their driveway to park behind East. Joe knew and cared for us all despite our youthful indiscretions.

The photo of Joe Platt in our ’74 yearbook was classic Joe, in a robe next to the pool and that unforgettable grin. I stayed the next year for the Master of Engineering program and roomed with Don Simkins. Don was quite an athletic swimmer, but would often return from a swim telling how he had again been soundly trounced by Joe. It made us smile then, and the memory of it still brings joy.

Thanks for putting on such a moving and joyous affair.

I received an offer and accepted it. When we showed up in Claremont in September 1975, I took my wife and two young daughters who were one and three years old on a tour of the campus.  When we walked by the pool, Joe and Jean jumped out of the pool and ran over to us soaking wet. Joe said, ”It is a pleasure to welcome the Remers to Claremont.”  We had just joined the Mudd Family and have been a part of that wonderful family for 37 years.

At Joe’s 90^th birthday party on campus, I walked up to say hello. He was talking to two other people. He immediately introduced me by telling them where I worked before I came to Mudd, where I got my degrees, and my field of research interest. Amazingly, at the age of 90, he still remembered significant details about me.

There’s more than the chorus to this song, does anyone have all the words? Something about when Johnny was a young man…

Perhaps an entire ballad? I count myself lucky to have arrived at ������Ƶ the final year he was president.

After Joe had retired as President and was back to teaching, I was coming on campus to do recruiting for the company I worked for in Santa Barbara, and I invited Joe and Jean to join my wife and me for dinner at the Indian Hill restaurant.  In the midst of dinner, Joe gave a start — his pager had gone off — this was in the days before cell phones.  He excused himself, made a call, came back to the table, and said, “I’ll be back in time for dessert.”  Then he left.  When he came back a while later, he was shaking his head and chuckling — as he so often did.  One of his freshman had gotten stuck while doing a make-up lab, and since Joe had given his students his pager number and his permission to call him, the student had called — and, of course, Joe had responded.  He — retired Founding President of ������Ƶ, and widely-respected physicist — had gotten up from his dinner with us to help a freshman who was stuck while doing a make-up lab.  That’s the Joe Platt that I remember.

We are so grateful that he was allowed the time to make a difference to so many.  He was a blessing to all of us.

That winter, after being accepted as a transfer, I found myself in the office of the director of Cornell’s prestigious engineering physics program. Noting that I was second in the class, he was bewildered and annoyed that I was considering leaving. He recited Dr. Platt’s 1961 resume, pausing after each entry to look up at me and say “So What”!

I had become quite content at Cornell, but some combination of the lousy Finger Lakes Region weather and his arrogance directed me to HMC. I remember thinking that this Dr. Platt sounded like a pretty good guy. Except for proposing to my wife a few years later, transferring from Cornell to HMC was the best decision of my life. Thank you Dr. Platt for your central role in creating an unparalleled undergraduate experience.