By Lee Ruggles
He exemplified for me the midway tier of his Hierarchy: love and belonging.
There’s an unfamiliar face at the small gathering. “Lee, this is Annie Maslow.” I ask Annie if there’s a connection with Dr. Abraham Maslow. There is. He was related to her husband, up there on his family tree, a few offshoots away.
That small connection took me back to Philadelphia, to the elation of being away from home, living in a dorm, being on my own. My boyfriend and I began to attend a series of lectures by well-known educators, scientists, philosophers. I was awestruck by each one. For this small town New Jersey girl, being so close to such worldliness was beyond anything I had ever experienced.
And then there was the evening when Abe Maslow spoke. It was already over ten years since he had developed his motivational theory in psychology, his Hierarchy of Needs. Here was this down-to-earth man explaining the tiers on his pyramid model. The forest of upraised hands during the Q&A session seemed endless. He hopped down off the small stage and continued to answer those around him. After about fifteen minutes, he leaned over to my boyfriend “Is there somewhere we can get a beer?”
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The three of us walked across Rittenhouse Square to an elegant hotel. I don’t recall what he asked me, but I do remember suddenly being tongue-tied and at a loss for words.
We stood in the short line near the entrance to the hotel’s bar. Had I opened my mouth a swarm of butterflies would have escaped into the lobby. The line moved forward.
“This is a men’s bar. There are no women permitted,” said the elegantly suited man at the door. I suddenly felt that I was about to shrink out of sight. Then those words that I have never forgotten “Well, if she can’t come in, we’re not coming in either.” Dr. Maslow responded.
We sat at a small table, each with a tall glass of beer. The rest of the evening is lost in the scrambled archives of my memory. What remains is the memory of a man who was ahead of his time, whose behavior exemplified for me the midway tier of his Hierarchy: love and belonging.
Lee Ruggles is a writer and editor living in Sarasota, Florida.
