Preface: On Number 97

Stanford Bronze Plaque 97
in honor of Class of 1997
Stanford's Memorial Quad

There are two Stanford Bronze Plaques 97 in the Memorial Quad at Stanford University.
The first Plaque 97 is located directly at the front door of Memorial Church, and is dedicated
to the Class of 1897. The first graduating class at Stanford was 1892. Another Plaque 97 near
Building 80 (Dept. of Human Biology) is dedicated to the Class of 1997. I've used this latter
Plaque 97 as the cover for On Number 97 since it's fresher and clearer.

As part of my Numbers compilations, web pages on "Number 97" was begun on September 18 and completed on October 10, 2018, in honor of Professor Harold A. Scheraga's 97th birthday on October 18, 2018. He was my doctorate advisor (1963-1970), where I did my Ph.D. in physical chemistry of macromolecules. I've been sending him birthday greetings each year.

Best By Number: Who Wore What With Distinction (2006) enabled me to include four sports players with uniform #97. Lyle Spatz's SABR Baseball List & Record Book (2007) was consulted for trivia baseball statistics on 97 (#84-88).

In section on "97 in Collectibles, Coins & Postage Stamps, #98-107, found 1997 China Panda Gold Coin, "Liberty Head" 1897-S Morgan Silver Dollar, and 1997 Jackie Robinson Silver Dollar. Marvel Comics stamp #97 showed Black Knight, Downloaded #97 Topps cards from Wings, World on Wheels, Look 'n See, and Scoop. No U.S. or Canadian postage stamps with 97¢ denomination, so used Scott #97 instead— 12¢ Washington (1868) from U.S. and 1¢ Quebec Tercentenary (1908) showing Explorers Cartier & Champlain. 0.97 Euro foreign stamps were found from Malta and Slovenia. My old copy of 1975 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue was outdated, so consulted 2018 catalogues from Los Altos Library to locate these stamps.

Passages on 97 from my spiritual mentors were typed from their books— #171-172: Wei Wu Wei's The Tenth Man & Asked the Awakened, #173: Paul Brunton's Notebooks, Volume 16: Enlightened Mind, Divine Mind, #174: Subramuniya's Merging with Siva, #175-176: Seung Sahn's Dropping Ashes on the Buddha & The Whole World Is A Single Flower and #177: Swami Chinmayananda's Say Cheese.

Passages on 97 from poets who taught me include #212-213: Kenneth Koch, my freshman English Professor at Columbia (1959-60), #216: Robert Bly (Asilomar Retreats 1988-89, San Francisco Mythical Thinking Workshop 1988, Stanford 2008), #217: Kay Ryan (Stanford 2010).

The last entry #220; Numerology: words whose letters add up to 97 shows "Evergreen Wanderer", "Partridge a Pear Tree", "Round Table Nourishment", "Sunflower Burning Bush", "Unity and Multiplicity" and "Weeping Crescent Moon" and five dates all adding up to 97.
I wanted to have 220 entries since Pythagoras found 220 and 284 to be amicable numbers.

Peter Y. Chou
Mountain View, October 18, 2018