Before I decided to ask him for an interview in May 2005, I had a portrait firmly in mind: surely he was an independent, no-nonsense kind of guy, a person of intimidating intellect with little patience for the mentally shallow—which is to say, smart, but a bit stuffy. I wasn’t sure I would make a worthy or even adequate interviewer. I was partly right, but mostly wrong.

Richard Ristow is slender, of average height, with clear, greenish-blue eyes. His gray hair, thinning on top, is worn long, sometimes tucked under a graceful Panama hat. He favors sandals and loose-fitting clothes. He and Souchong, his little black pug (who insisted on joining us on our jaunt around Providence), make a distinctive pair. I noticed that Richard’s speech, normally rapid and energetic, slowed and relaxed when he was holding Souchong, so I encouraged that behavior because it made it easier for me to take notes.

Richard Ristow couldn’t be more of a gentleman, with emphasis on “gentle.” Self-assured, yet humble, he welcomed me as an equal and built a friendship on the spot. He enjoys stopping to smell the flowers, and whispers their genus and species as he does. There is an apparent paradox: well versed in mathematics, he has the heart of a poet. He wrote me that he was sometimes nostalgic for the place where he grew up, which was Washington, D.C.:

Despite over 40 years away from there, over 35 in Providence, Rhode Island, that area still speaks of 'home' to me. Nostalgic for Washington, D.C.? That's a joke, right?

Well, but Washington, and that part of Virginia, can be breathtakingly beautiful in the spring. Washington’s broad streets, and the greens around the national monuments are perfect settings for the explosions of daffodils and tulips and flowering trees. I still joke that I daren’t go there in April, because I wouldn’t be able to leave. Two years ago I was; and I did manage to leave, but carrying those flowers, and the new-green grass, in my heart when I did.

There’s a huge amount wrong with Washington as a city, but what it’s meant for me has been a place to learn. I hardly want to go there, on the new war-conscious footing with checkpoints everywhere. I loved how it used to be: huge resources of beauty and information available to anyone who’d walk into the library or museum, and ask with courtesy.