To take himself down a few pegs he told the old joke where B.S. has its profane meaning, M.S. means 'more of the same' and Ph.D. means 'piled higher and deeper'. A trace of tobacco country still in his voice, White described his birthplace as 'a little country town', where his dad had a grocery store and served as postmaster. His chief memory of those early years was the honor of filling the water bucket at the one-room schoolhouse he attended. He recalled Park College in Missouri, a work-study institution, where $75 bought a year's tuition and room and board. White found the two loves of his life - physics and his future wife, Stella Mae Steele. They wed in 1917 and moved to Philadelphia, where White worked in a munitions plant. It was not until Dave Duncad, acting head of the physics department, lured him to the Pennsylvania State College's fledgling graduate program with the promise of a S900 per year post as an assistant instructor. "That's as low as the ventral on an 'ol shark'," White said, not of the pay, but of his faculty status.

        White likes to talk about what State College was like when he arrived in 1918: mostly farmland, unpaved College Avenue and Allen Street, students living in woodstove heated Old Main, the Nittany Lions playing big home games against Penn and Rutgers, and one particular away game, in 1922, which sticks in his memory: when twin sons Laurence and Kenneth were born during Dad's absence. The Whites later had a third son, Malcolm. All three boys went to Penn State. All three became college professors, though none followed his father into the physics lab. Laurence taught chemistry at Penn State and still lives in Stale College. "The three boys turned out to be 'quite respectable'," White said. "Still, the woman of the house had them all beat, 'She was the brains of the family'," White said of his wife, who died in 1985. He went on to praise her in terms only an academic could appreciate: "She was a 'liberal arts girl', all the way through." Retired from teaching since 1961, the professor emeritus continues to live in his mail order stone house on East Prospect Avenue under the care of nurse-companion Vivian Hanscom. He doesn't get out as much as he used to, but in his younger years he was something of a liberal arts guy himself, in terms of the breadth of his interests and community involvements.

        Consider the organizations he founded or cofounded: the Penn State chapter of Delta Chi in 1929, the Penn State chapter of Sigma Pi Sigma, a national physics honor society, and C-COR Electronics in the 1950s. As a patron of the arts he was a devout attendee of concerts and the theater. Hank Yeagley, whose father, Henry Yeagley Sr., and White, who were physics department colleagues, describes him as a "dyed-in-the-wool" Rotary Club member.

        He was also a fanatical sports fan - especiaily when it came to the Nittany Lions, whom he followed at home and on the road. Above all, White was an educator, a writer of textbooks, and a rider of students. "I was pretty rough on 'em, to tell the truth," he said. "I didn't put up with any 'monkey business'." White's belief in education makes him hopeful for the future. "It wasn't long ago," he said, "that higher education was for pastors, lawyers, and physicians. Nowadays, lots of people have general educations and become good citizens in a variety of ways. As people become more educated they become more sensible."

        With all the changes he has seen in his lifetime, in our understanding of the nature of manner, and regarding the way we store and retrieve information... - White hates the word 'computer' - the eternal verilies of physics remain: "Yes, I still believe a body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in motion." Something else that hasn't changed: White's opinion of the town whose birthday he shares: "I couldn't ask for a better way 'ol-living'," he said. "Fine, companionable people - 'and I get my name in the paper'."