摘要：When I left residence in graduate school at the University of Chicago and came tolive in Boston in 1966, I was welcomed into a community of sociologists atBrandeis University to whom I have been ever grateful. Egon Bittner sat at thecentre of this world, bequeathing to me whatever intellectual accomplishment orsense there exists in my work over these years. This acknowledgement is insufficient,however, to convey what our relationship became or what Egon made ofme. Certainly, I would never have switched fields and identity (a word I do notdeploy easily because it obscures more than it conveys) to become a sociologist,without his mentoring and guidance. Ever since I appeared in one of his classes,invited by his student Claire Lang whom I had just met and with whom I bondedin love of Egon, he became my teacher, my friend, an inspiration, and eventually acolleague. Above all else, he showed me a way of understanding; he opened myeyes and mind to the tacit features of social action, about which I had an inklingwhen I was dissatisfied with the training I was receiving in political science butwhich I did not know how to access or conceptualise until he took me under hiswing. I have been immersed in this activity ever since. It has been a very good lifeand I owe much of the passion for the work to him.
