Historical Meet-Ups

Albert Einstein
Reluctant father of the atomic age

meets

Wavy Gravy
Unofficial president of Woodstock Nation 

Born Hugh Nanton Romney, the tie-dyed jackanapes who would rechristen himself Wavy Gravy (at the suggestion of B.B. King, of all people) spent his formative years in Princeton, New Jersey. There one of his neighbors was an eccentric professor at the Institute for Advanced Study named Albert Einstein. Five-year-old Hugh was playing in the yard one day when the 62-year-old Einstein asked the boy’s mother if he could take him for a walk around the block. It soon became a daily ritual. Together they would head out in the early mornings for a fortifying constitutional around their leafy suburban neighborhood. If there was conversation, it has vanished into the mists of memory. Einstein¹s distinctive odor, on the other hand, left more of an impression. “He had a peculiar smell,” Gravy recalled years later. “I can¹t wait for the day when I can tell someone, ‘Hey, you smell like Albert Einstein.’”