As the know-it-all American, I came up with a list of ways to make life better for the students doing Part III of the Mathematical Tripos (a year of mathematics at the University of Cambridge between undergrad and graduate studies). I decided to present my ideas to Professor Frank Adams, who was in charge of the Part III students.
As I wrote my friend (two days after Adams' deck transformations joke), "At morning coffee today I finally got up the nerve to talk to Adams (well, I didn't really get up the nerve, but I had decided to talk to him today whether or not I did). He was pretty nice. He didn't automatically agree with all my suggestions, but said he'd think about them. He asked what courses I'm taking, and what I plan to take next term, and when I answered, he pointed out that I'm not concentrating in one area. I explained why, and also said I'm most interested in number theory. He thought it would be good for all the number theorists to know each other, and thought that they should have a party. He said that if [Alan] Baker organized it, it wouldn't turn out to be a party, so maybe some grad students should do it, or possibly [Hugh] Montgomery. I thought it was a good idea. He asked me my name, and wrote it in his little book. He was very nice."
A couple of weeks later I asked Adams at tea what he decided about my suggestions for improving the room for Part III students (a nearly-unused dismal room in the basement with a narrow window near the ceiling through which car exhaust from the car park poured in). He said he had discussed it with Cassels and they decided my ideas weren't feasible.
He asked if I got the note that was left for me in the graduate students' pigeonholes. I had looked in the pigeonholes in the past, but had felt silly doing so because I thought that Part III students were not considered to be grad students.
I retrieved the note from the pigeonhole labeled "Visitors M-S". It was a photocopy of a handwritten list of Part IIIers who had either expressed an interest in number theory or were taking Baker's course, giving first initial, last name, and College. Adams wrote at the bottom in red ink the suggestion that I contact the one other student in Baker's course who had expressed an interest in number theory (to form a study group? to throw a party? that wasn't clear) and pointed out it might help me "get in with the Trinity mathematical mafia."
My intention was to improve the quality of Part III for everyone, not to form a study group with one other student (whom I didn't know how to contact when neither of us had phones). But Adams meant well, and I appreciated that he was trying to be helpful.
A few years later I was invited to a party at someone's home after Adams gave a talk at Rutgers University. It turned out that Adams was brilliant at party games. One game he taught us had us starting on a table top, and then going under and around the table, arriving back on top without ever touching the floor or anything other than the table. The partygoers were mesmerized by Adams' ability to contort himself. I was so delighted that I forgot to be scared of him. I wasn't surprised that Frank Adams was sorely missed after his tragic death.