Author: Stanley Waldrop
From the Chaffey College Seventh Annual Faculty Lecture 1975, given by O. (Otis) Stanley Waldrop titled "Power".
Stan Waldrop was 18 years old when he was drafted into the U.S. Marines during World War II. He enjoyed spending time in the base libraries, where his "egghead intellectual identity" tended to scare away his "superiors." It was there that he first read Plato's Dialogs and became impressed with the power of philosophy. He writes that "never having had a personal father, the abstract notion of a dependable philosopher-king father sat well with me." After the war ended, Stan Waldrop attended college and became a professor of psychology at Chaffey College in Alta Loma, California. He taught there in the late 1960's and into at least the mid-1970's, where he was beloved by his students for his wisdom and eccentricities. His colleague, Bea Rose, wrote: "Out of their magic moments with him in the classroom, two of his most perceptive students say, 'The core of the Waldrop character is centered around a unique sense of relatedness that originates in a deep commitment to life.' " He was a true renaissance man.
