Who I am and how to contact me
As to my life, I was born in the Boston area and went to public grammar school and high school. Upon graduation, I received a scholarship to the Jesuit university Boston College, and after my Freshman year, I joined the order. I was a Jesuit for eight years (but never became a priest), receiving my Master's Degree and Licentiate in philosophy, (minoring in physics), basically studying Thomism in a systematic way. After a year of teaching at Boston College High School, I found to my surprise that my vocation now was to be a layman, and so, with the Provincial's permission, I left the order.
Since I had done some astronomy in the seminary, I was hired by Sky and Telescope magazine as an editorial assistant, where I spent one year, after which I received a teaching fellowship at Fordham University to complete my Doctorate in philosophy. I married an Argentine student I met there.
After that, I was hired (explicitly as an "original thinker") for two years by Xavier University in Cincinnati; but then was let go (after passing a heresy examination) because I actually dared to think originally. But then (after explaining the situation) I was hired by Thomas More College (originally Villa Madonna College), a small diocesan college in Kentucky, just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. I spent 34 years teaching there, part of the time as Chairman of the Philosophy Department.
I have given a few art shows, and also done some dramatic performances (mainly the dramatic recital of John's Gospel), not only in the Cincinnati area, but in various places in New England. I was one of the first to engage in "desktop publishing," even before it had a name; and most of the books on this site are textbooks that I produced and sold to my students for enough to cover the cost of production. I sang in the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus for some twelve or so years, under such directors as James Levine, Robert Shaw, and Leonard Bernstein. I also invented a camera using mirrors to produce the quasi-3D "natural eye" photographs that you can see on this site.
I still, at age 73, lift weights once a week and work out on a bicycle twice a week; in spite of which, in May of 2003, I had to have double bypass surgery on my heart. But, thank God, I am quite recovered. I am a great fan of Charles Dickens, and have read everything he wrote, often three or four times. I also enjoy doing Sunday New York Times crossword puzzles; and in my spare moments I knit elaborate fisherman-type sweaters.
Part of my goal in life is to demonstrate that in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is still possible to be a Renaissance Man. I do not know if my philosophical musings are valid; but I decided to make them and other things I have done available in case anyone finds them useful. Fortunately, I have enough to live comfortably, and so don't need to bother making money from them.
Any correspondence related to the estate of George A. Blair
should be directed to:
P.O. Box 187591988
Sioux Falls, SD 57186