Big Footsteps
I stumbled into Abbott's philosophy 100 course at Mesa Junior College in Grand Junction, which had about 425 students. None of us knew what "philosophy" was, since it's not offered in high schools. Abbott was a historian, and didn't know too much about philosophy, but was assigned the course. Abbott was the greatest "natural" teacher I have ever known. He posed philosophical questions and issues that had us climbing over the desks in vigorous debates. It was the luckiest day of my life and started a transformation from naive football "jock" to a lifetime of philosophy and a career of 35 years as a philosophy professor at the University of Southern Colorado. We kept up with each other over the years. Along with his multi-talented and amazing wife Joan, he changed thousands of lives for the better. Humorous, quizzical, eccentric (like the rest of us), eclectic, opinionated, caring, fun, worldly, endlessly curious, unstoppable even after "retirement", he was simply astounding. For so many of us, he was mentor, model, and icon. Larimore ("Larry" "Nick") Nicholl