The Physicist and the Professor

A lot of people look down on Northeastern Pennsylvania, including many people from Northeastern Pennsylvania. Coal-crackers, they call us. Heynas. Peasants. Scranton alone is the butt of a million jokes. Some people think of this place as good for nothing but a dumping ground for undesirables from Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey.

They're wrong, of course.

More than a few noteable people have come from this area. Some, like Mary Jo Kopechne, are famous not for their accomplishments but for being victims of circumstance. Others have achieved fame for more positive reasons.

There are at least two world-famous scientists who were born in this area. One was Wlkes-Barre's David Bohm, a quantum physicist and one of Senator Joseph McCarthy's many victims. His career survived the McCarthy era, but only after he removed himself from the United States. He died in 1992 in London, leaving behind a huge body of work.

The other famous scientist is actually an actor playing the part of scientist - a scientist who could build a radio out of a coconut but couldn't figure out how to patch a two-foot hole on a boat. Russell Johnson, who achieved worldwide fame as The Professor on Gilligan's Island, was born in Ashley, a small town not far from Nanticoke. Perhaps like James Doohan - Star Trek's Scotty - Russell Johnson's Professor was responsible for creating interest in his character's field of expertise among impressionable young kids - especially the ones who wouldn't mind being stranded on a desert island with the likes of Ginger and Mary Ann.

There are no statues to these two, no schools named in their honor, not in this corner of the world. There should be. Something to commemorate their lives, to recognize their accomplishments, and to remind kids that even they - the great-grandchildren of coal crackers, the sons and daughters of Heynas, the children of exiles from the mean streets of the big cities - that even they can grow up to accomplish great things. Even to become great scientists.

Or at least play one on TV.