Wallace Provost

One on One

Philosophy for me is an attempt to understand the universe around us through the use of reason.

I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on January 3, 1929, graduated from Agawam High School in Agawam, Massachusetts. in 1946 and learned Electronics at Springfield Trade School.  I married Therese Galarneau in 1950 and we raised 7 children until her death from cancer in 1985.

Beginning at the University of South Florida, I earned a bachelor's degree in independent studies in 1979 followed by master's degrees in philosophy and sociology.  I worked most of my life as an electronic technician, primarily in industry and broadcasting.  I began teaching philosophy as a TA at USF and as a part time instructor at junior colleges in the Tampa, Florida. area.  I received outstanding teacher awards at USF and at Hillsborough Community College. God, Science and Reason was developed out of my notes from 15 years of teaching Introduction to Philosophy. 

Following the death of my first wife, I married Joanna Stark, who brought with her four grown children so that today, between us, we have eleven children, fifty grandchildren, and twenty five great grandchildren.  From that you can understand why I think the future is so important.

After six years teaching at Hillsborough Community College, I received a call from the dean informing me that I was teaching more philosophy students than all of the full time professors in the city of Tampa put together.  This resulted in my getting bumped out of my job.  A little misunderstanding with the social security commission and I found myself with zero income and to make things worse, Joanna's daughter moved to Amarillo, Texas.  With no other options, we followed and I went back to being an electronic technician, servicing computers in Amarillo.  (On my own since I was now well beyond the age where people get hired)

Freedom and Burden of Responsibility is the culmination of my life's work and study.  When I began it, instead of HTML and the Internet, we had the hypertext program Black Magic and private networks such as Usenet and Timenet after  hours.  If I have any hopes from this work it is that someone will take some of the ideas presented here and run with them, and perhaps help to build a society that responds to people instead of organizations.

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