Introduction

Writing an introduction to a volume of essays in honor of Michael Basch is another step in our closing the door on his life. So much of this life was his work that this collected effort of his friends and colleagues, a great deal of which looks back on his scientific contributions, also serves as a marker that sadly shows the direction of our vision.

Although he was terribly proud of the “Michael Franz Basch” triad, I can only think of him as Mike, and I can only feel that having been able to see this book in his memory would have made him smile and want to edit it for grammatical and punctuation errors. Mike did have this perhaps peculiar combination of strict correctness and generous forgiving. He would dearly have loved every single contribution, but would have suggested a few more references—most probably, to his own work.

I first met Mike as a fellow resident at the Michael Reese Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute in Chicago. I found him to be stiff, unfriendly, and aloof as well as warm, funny, and generous. It was not that he was a mass of contradictions. It was all a matter of timing. Over the years I learned that you had to pick your spots with Mike, because he could become so intense and focused on something or other that there could be no easy shifting to another person or issue. But one would then be rewarded with the same sort of complete and wholehearted attention that had caused you to wait in line. Mike did not flit. He was there.

Mike and I remained in a sort of tandem step throughout our entire professional careers. We had one joke to weather all of the obstacles that came between us. He would say that everything I knew or taught or wrote was what I had learned or stolen from him. I would offer the same comment about his efforts. I can now right the injustice by setting the record straight but, of course, that would end the fun. I guess it was about even.

After completing our residencies at Michael Reese we, as did just about everyone, went into p