Man came in telling me a story of his college days after coming in twice today and asking me how many people had come in the gallery. He's chair of the Eclipse Mills (an artist loft-artists living and working in a former textile mill) and has a bunch of other fancy names that he is dedicated to in the art world of the smallest city of Massachusetts, none of which I can remember, along with his name. Anyways, returning for the third time, he starts talking about his Professor in college who was also V.P. for a big deal bank. He was English-Canadian and very proper (even for Canadian standards he said); always wore a three piece suit.
The Professor was teaching the class about B.F. Skinner. He was an American psychologist who experimented a lot with rats and dogs. You may be familiar with his experiment of giving a dog a treat and ringing a bell. Eventually, once the dog has familiarized itself with this pattern, take away the treat and ring the bell, the dog will immediately start to salivated (learned behavior). So he goes on to tell me that Skinner came up with the carrot and stick concept and then comes back to his proper Professor talking about Skinner's experiment with rats- teaching them how to bowl and asking the class how this would be done. No one knows and after minutes of painful silence the Professor takes off his coat, takes off his cuff links, rolls up his sleeves and says, "I'm the rat, teach me." He then proceeds to go down on his hands and knees and says, "Well c'mon, teach me," as he nudges his nose in the air at the imaginary bowling pin in front of him.
And then this man talking to me, at least 6 feet tall and a round belly rivalling Santa Clause says, "And I'll leave you with that!" Laughs and walks out.
So I guess, though there may not have been an event that directly involved me for him to tell me this story, it meant that no matter how high up or how low on the rungs of that ladder you are, we are all in the most basic sense, lab rats...hah! Just kidding :)
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