Lunch at Endicott.

We were invited, along with the entire faculty and staff of the Harvard Physics Department to a family luncheon at the MIT Endicott House, of which more here.  The story goes that the Endicott family (one of Massachusetts' "royal" families), offered the property to Harvard as a conference center.  Harvard declined and MIT bought it.  How did we come to be there?  One of the department's distinguished faculty recently won several very large cash prizes for his contribution to the field of physics and decided, in an act of great generosity to donate some of this money to fund a family get-together for all members of the department, not just once, but for the next ten years.  There were games for the kids, and a very nice buffet lunch for all.  My Editor and I ended up at a table with one other staff member and four very distinguished professors - one of whom is a Nobel Laureate - and their spouses.  The situation had the potential for a great deal of awkwardness, and yet there was none.