This editorial was originally published in the October'92 issue of the
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. It was written by Professor Jack
Deller, a former Editor of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, who
first met Henry Messinger during an interview trip to Illinois
Institute of Technology. This is where our story begins, as the three
of us crossed paths for the first time on the south side of Chicago.
This story is reprinted here as a tribute to a man who was an
inspiration to the many people he touched in his life. He also was
known for being one of the few people in the world who successfully
taught junior-level EE students how to derive Maxwell's equations
in a 3D spherical coordinate system.
Henry Didn't Fit In
"I'm Professor Messinger," said Henry. "Sure you are, buddy. Get in." An
exasperated Henry Messinger got into the back of the cruiser and was taken to
the police station in a northwestern suburb of Chicago.
There was a travel allowance, but Henry was not one to waste money on luxuries
like convenient transportation. In fact, he didn't own a car, and when he was
assigned to teach an extension course at the industrial site on the other side
of town, Henry did what he considered to be the only logical thing: He got
out the public transportation map and charted a course. Ninety minutes, three
train transfers, and two bus rides got him to a large shopping mall a mile or
so from his destination. Another instructor had a standing arrangement with a
cab company to complete the journey, but Henry would not hear of such
extravagance. A short walk, that's all it was. No sense in spending
university resources on a taxi.
The walk was not far. The exercise was good for him. In good weather it was
even enjoyable. It cleared his mind for the lecture he was about to deliver.
Actually, the police did not object to the walking, it was the venue for the
walking that was the issue. Perhaps it was also the fact that he looked a bit
unkempt. What was he up to out there? Any police officer would have
responded similarly.
It was a bitter, snowy winter day. The cops received a report of an man in
his sixties walking down the median of a major divided highway. He was
dressed in a stocking cap and old orange parka showing the stains and rips of
years of wear. Below the waistline of the parka hung a very out-of-date
sport coat, which matched neither the flannel shirt nor the 1940's vintage tie.
The ensemble was completed by rumpled trousers and an old pair of work boots.
The man was carrying a tattered shopping bag full of papers. "What's in the
bag?" asked one of the officers. "My students' homework assignments,"
responded Henry indignantly. "Right," chortled the cop.
Of course, the papers were the homework assignments, and, yes,
Prof. Messinger was employed by the university and was on his way
to teach his course at the industrial training site. All of this was
confirmed by Betty, the department secretary, when the police reluctantly
phoned the university. There must have been some good laughs at the station
when the officers returned from their special escort to the company. Betty,
upon hanging up the phone, howled "You won't believe what Henry did now!" And
there were certainly some good laughs in the EE department that day. It was
so,... well, it was so "Henry"!
This editor has been blessed with a colorful array of characters populating
his life. While a few have appeared in this column, I have always felt
compelled to relate their stories somehow -- no matter how marginally -- to
signal processing. This is, after all, a publication by, for, and about
signal processing engineers. The outline of this story has been in a dusty
folder awaiting its moment, but I could never find a way to tie the disheveled
professor with a shopping bag story to anything remotely having to do with
signal processing. I doubt that Professor Messinger could spell D.S.P. In
fact, he went to school in an era long before digital signal processing was a
discipline. He once proudly told me that when he was in graduate school,
students were required to master two areas in engineering. As a
specialist in electromagnetics, I knew his second love was power engineering,
but to humor him, I asked: "So what was your minor, Henry?" "MECHANICAL
engineering," he responded.
Reminiscing on my first encounter with Henry gave me even less hope that his
story would ever fit in a signal processing magazine. I was only 26 years
old, about to become a new Ph.D., and interviewing in academia for one of the
first times. In the obligatory lecture on my thesis work, I had carefully and
nervously laid out the digital model of speech production. The room was warm
and dark, and this senior professor had immediately dozed off in the back.
His light snoring was disconcerting to me, but the other members of
the faculty had apparently become accustomed to this scenario. Suddenly,
somehow the word "acoustic" had penetrated his deep slumber, and he woke with
a start to ask, "What does that have to do with a violin?" I had prepared for
many possible questions about my research, but this one I had not anticipated.
(To this day, I tutor my students in the art of handling an off-the-wall
question.) It was a very "Henry" question.
So the question remained as to how to tie my friend and former
colleague to signal processing? As I pondered this issue, I realized
we need to look beyond the soup-stained tie, and deep into the
shopping bag of problem sets. For under that tie, we find a very
decent and caring man. In that bag we find extraordinary dedication
to teaching, the concern and attention of a man who quite literally
gave up every Friday afternoon as long as I knew him to teach a four
hour problem drill session on E&M problems. Sure, the students (at
the time) hated it! He screamed for their attention and demanded
precision and thoroughness in their answers. His voice would rise to
the high pitch of a shrill trumpet that could be heard all over the
third floor. The next morning, Saturday, he could be found in the
basement machine lab checking out each detail of every upcoming
experiment on the old M-G sets. Those who didn't get good results the
last week would sometimes be there with him, redoing it until they got
it right! He did it because he cared deeply about his students. He
really wanted them to learn, and would give anything he could to make
sure that they did. He approached those old generators with a zeal
and enthusiasm that makes our interest in the latest pipeline
processors pale in comparison.
And what became of the money saved by not updating his wardrobe, not
owning a car, and using old bags for a briefcase? Well, if you were a
graduate student who was having trouble making ends meet, you could
likely stay with Henry. The pleasure and fascination of meeting new
people from new cultures made him bubble with stories about his
"tenants" --- sometimes injecting some new phrases of some exotic
language he had learned. His home and his heart were open to them
all. They came in and out of his life almost quarterly, but each
could not help but be touched forever by his love and his generosity.
The last time I saw Henry, his face was cut and he had a black eye.
We were having dinner together with some friends before I was to leave
for a new position in another city. Henry didn't want to talk about
his injuries. He had gotten them on his ride to work that day as he
navigated his balloon-tired bicycle through one of the most rugged
neighborhoods of south Chicago. This was his usual route, and it
wouldn't have occurred to him to feel threatened in this part of the
city. Indeed, he saw the people in the streets for what they were ---
the folks who lived, and worked, and just hung out, along his way to
school. So when Henry encountered two teens in a dangerously
escalating fight on a corner, he didn't think twice about intervening.
``After all,'' he told us, ``they might have gotten hurt if I hadn't
stopped them.''
What Henry did want to talk about that evening was his past.
We could seen the pain and sorrow in his eyes as he talked about his
narrow escape from Austria during World War II. He and his brother
had left their parents behind, perhaps never to see them again, to
pursue a dangerous plan designed to take them to the U.S. Just
children, and they had to endure this awful reality. It was a rare
solemn moment for this enthusiastic and energetic old gentleman. I
remember him telling us how intensely grateful he was to have been
given this "second chance" in a new world, and how he wished the
"kids" could appreciate the opportunities they have to be educated.
The lack of concern for matching his tie began to come into focus for
me. Maybe it was that terrible childhood experience that somehow made
him want to give and give of himself, that gave him such a zest for
life, a love of learning, a love of teaching, and, most of all, a love
and concern for other people? Whatever the reason for his specialness,
the work boots and the disheveled hair no longer seemed funny in that
moment.
When Henry died not long ago, I knew I had to somehow finish the
editorial about the electrical engineering professor with a shopping
bag. As I thought about it, it became patently clear that the
shopping bag was not the main story. Henry's life was not a series of
humorous vignettes as many of us had come to think of it. He was a
real person who provided us with some laughs, but with so much
more. He was above all a teacher -- a good one. A teacher of
electromagnetics, but, more importantly, a teacher of life. His
lessons were filled with wonderful examples. So in this special issue
dedicated to education, this "Editor's Message," my last, is for
Henry. It's from all of us whose lives you enriched in so many ways.
And it's for all the Henry's and Henrietta's known to all of us in the
SP Society. A teacher, a friend, a colleague down the hall? While
you have the opportunity, shake his hand, or give her a call. Tell
her she's special. Tell him you read about him in SP Magazine. And
when he says "Signal Processing Magazine? I don't do signal
processing!" the appropriate response is "What does that have to do
with a violin?"
Jack Deller
Editor, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
October, 1992