I mean they're mentally lively. I mean there are many things, or a few things, or one big thing, that fascinates them, and they learn about those things for the love of it. Their minds need exercise and play the way a greyhound needs running. In whatever they care about, sometimes in whatever they run across, they see patterns and connections, not facts. Like looking at a chessboard, if you play: it isn't pieces on squares, it's a field of forces and influences each piece projects, all interlocking.

I mean, people who see what matters, not just see what they see.

I was also right about his being independent, having made his living as a free-lance consultant since 1981. He is in good company with Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, and the "Independent Man" whose statue tops the Rhode Island State House in Providence.

Richard was born in Manhattan, New York City, the eldest of three brothers. However, when asked what part of the country speaks of “home” to him, he replied, “I’m from families from the American Midwest, and although I’ve lived all my life in the northeast coastal regions of the United States, the Illinois cornfields, and the Wisconsin valleys, feel like where I’m ‘from’.”

His parents and grandparents were of diverse occupation: midwestern farmers, homemakers, architects, streetcar motormen and teachers. Many shared a love of learning, which they handed down to Richard.

My father’s career was with the U.S. Library of Congress. His example taught me to love both scholarship, and scholarly information open to whoever would use it. And to be angry with anyone who’d close it off without very, very good cause.