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Web of Stories offers you the chance to listen to some of the greatest people of our time telling their life stories.

A feeling of mystery

Christian de Duve

Scientist

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Enjoying my life

Gerald Fischbach - Scientist

Times in Boston were terrific. Ruth did not enjoy it as much as I did. She felt the city was still racist, and it was. Her colleagues at the medical school were not as warm or understanding as mine, so she was not unhappy to leave Boston, one of the reasons I did, went to the NIH. Which turned out the be a very happy time.

The NIH, it's hard to imagine now, is physically beautiful, it's very different than the medical school quadrangle, which is small and confined. Distinguished, but it doesn't have the natural beauty that the NIH did. And the freedom at the NIH was really extraordinary in the early days. I played on the softball team at the NIH. I was the third baseman, a good third baseman. We played in a league, the Montgomery County League, and I played on the team in New York as well. So, in general, life was good.

Our friends were wonderful at the NIH. Every week now I look at the newspapers and the obituaries on the web, hoping I don't see old friends, but too often I do. You have a feeling of things coming to an end, I do. I just have to accept it. This trip to Puerto Rico is an example of that, just the huge effort for me. I wouldn't do it again. We talked about selling our home, which is on 10 acres, it takes a lot of work. Not from me, but from a property manager, and moving into an assisted living place. This is an area I don't want to get into, but instead we're probably going to hire help to come to our house, under the demands of our children, and I'm looking forward to it. Sitting back, reading, trying to write a little bit more, watching movies at night with Ruth and just enjoying what time I have here at the foundation. But it's really Harvard, the Foundation, and a little bit Columbia that is on my mind.

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