Karl Joreskog completed his studies to be a grammar school teacher in Sweden--a career path that had been his lifelong goal. Following completion of his studies in June, just as he was about to go out on his first practice teaching assignment, a friend of his told Karl that he was getting married and wanted to go on a long honeymoon. He asked if Karl Joreskog would take his summer job in a statistics lab for him instead. So to help out a friend, Karl postponed his practice teaching assignment and worked in the stats lab over the summer, with full intention of taking up his teaching assingment in the fall. When fall came, a professor, who was the chair of the statistics department, told Karl, "we cannot let you become a grammar school teacher! Instead, we want you to continue as a Ph.D. student in our statistics department." This was because Karl had shown such a tremendous aptitude for statistics. And the rest is history. I'm sure that Professor Joreskog could tell the story with a bit more gusto, but there are a couple points to it. One of them is that ne never really gave up on his dream of teaching grammar school, and if you have ever heard him teach in his workshops, everything he presents is incredibly SIMPLE. That is what makes him such a great teacher. DISCLAIMER: I am telling this story from memory, having heard it from Professor Joreskog on a trip to Philadelphia to teach around 1988 or earlier. I always found this story about how he got into statistics extremely interesting. Life can be quite unpredictable! Additional Joreskog Trivia: At that time he visited Philadelphia Professor Joreskog was especially excited about three things: (1) the 386 computer was about to come out, and he was besides himself with excitement. He thought of a 386 pc as a "little mainframe." He was also exceptionally proud of his 286-AT computer, and how fast it was compared with the old XT computers when iterating LISREL problems. We worked together for several days using LISREL on an old XT computer, a Compact portable I had in my office, and it seemed adequate at the time! (2) He was dying to obtain a copy of microsoft word, and got a copy at the Penn Bookstore. He strongly advised me to purchase and use this program, which I did--and he could not believe how cheap software was in the US compared with Sweden. (3) He was debugging PRELIS, which he was just finishing up on. He installed on of the first beta copies of PRELIS on the old XT PC in my office. Of the teachers I have had through the years, from college days to the present, I have noticed that the giants in any particular field are almost always extremely simple and clear in their teaching, just like Professor Joreskog, and I have often felt that things that seem complicated or difficult only appear that way because the person who is explaining them is either doing a poor job of teaching or is covering up a lack of understanding with big words and convoluted sentences. We should all try to model our teaching on the wonderful and clear teaching of Dr. Joreskog and think of ourselves as teaching grammar school children! Keep it simple and clear whenever possible! At any rate, we are lucky to have so many clear and helpful teachers on our SEMNET... Hope you enjoyed the Trivia Quiz! David Burns