Ben Parker, a student of anthropology at the University of Hawaii, watched the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. He immediately joined the Navy--which is, no doubt, where his appreciation in the subtleties of The Word began. Now long retired from Fibreboard Corporation's Creative Packaging Design Center on the San Francisco waterfront, Ben still lives on a secluded hillside above Mill Valley. His residence of sixty years has a bright yang bathroom with a splendid view across the wooded valley, and a meditative yin alternative with a glass wall that looks into a sub-tropical fern dell and pond--which is even more splendid. He sums up his 96 years with: "Occasionally I exhibited a trace of maturity.".