HANS INGMAR BJELKHAGEN

I first met Hans courtesy of Gallery 1134 in the Spring of 1980. It was his second trip to Chicago, having visited there in 1977 with Nils Abramson. Here he is with Loren in the Summer of 2008, when he pestered me to visit there. Loren was 89 at this time.

Here is a photo of the interferometry class, taken at Oscar Meyer Hall on the campus of Northwestern University.

I am not exactly sure who all the students are, but Loren is front and center, Hans to the right, John Hoffmann next, and Alan Frohlichtstein at the end, who probably self-timed shot the picture. On page 2 of this pdf is a complete class roster.

Hans told me that after class, Loren would give John a wad of cash to take him out to dinner and have a good time. But what Loren didn't know was that John's idea of a good time, in additon to eating and drinking, was to do a few lines of coke. Hans said that before gong to a estaurant, John would stop at a phone booth, call somebody, (don;t forget, this was 1984, before cell phones, scoot around a corner, and then come back, grinning. Then they would both indulge.