Professor of Astronomy Robert P. Kirshner engages in a different type of sport in his spare time.

"When I was an undergraduate here, I started the Harvard Cycling Club and did intercollegiate bike racing," he says.

This year, Kirshner says, he started cycling again when his son became interested in the sport. He now cycles 15 miles to work every day.

Copeland Lecturer on English and American Literature and Language Verlyn Klinkenborg participates in a rather esoteric sport in his free time--horse training.

"This summer I worked on my place in the Berkshires," Klinkenberg says. "I just finished building a run-in shed for horses."

Klinkenberg says he recently spent five days in the middle of Montana learning how to turn a colt into a trained horse.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Some professors' hobbies are a bit more out of the ordinary.

Agassiz Professor of Zoology Richard C. Lewontin spends his spare time fighting fires as president of the volunteer fire company in Marlboro, Vt.

"When the beeper goes off, I put out fires," explains Lewinton. "I'm always a little anxious, but I'm pretty well trained, and I never go in alone."

Lewinton says he is proud to be a productive member of the 300-person town.

"Marlboro is a small town run by primitive democracy," he says. "This is one of my contributions to the communal life of the town."

On a more spiritual level, Lee Professor of Economics Hendrik S. Houthakker says he has helped Pope John Paul II with one of his encyclicals, or papal pronouncements, which were published last May.

"I helped convince him that the free market was the way to go," Houthakker says. "He took a more favorable view of capitalism than most had expected."

Houthakker met John Paul II through his wife, who knew him before he became the leader of the Catholic church. Houthakker says the Pope even visited his place in Vermont in 1975.