Houghton sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and is a member of the International Relations Committee, where he heads up the Subcommittee on Africa.

And after his recent vote on the China trade bill facing the House, Houghton got a call from a disgruntled constituent called who threatened to "come punch [him]out."

"Politics is the rawest form of humanity--good and bad," Houghton says.

Eliot House and Beyond

During his College years, Houghton toyed with dreams of serving in the State Department, and was also interested in the ministry. And then there was always the family business, Corning Glass.

"I had been in the service, so I was ready to do stuff," he says.

He had enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1944, and did a tour in the Caribbean on the U.S.S. Macon.

Houghton first met his Eliot House roommate, Robert L. Montgomery '50, when the two were students at St. Paul's prep school in New Hampshire.

"We met in the infirmary, after I had my appendix out," Montgomery remembers. "He started reciting dirty limericks to make me laugh. He caused me considerable pain."

Houghton, Montgomery and two of their classmates from St. Paul's ended up at Harvard after serving in the military, and because they were veterans, were put directly into Eliot House.

"They thought we were too dangerous to be in the freshman dormitory," Montgomery says.

The four guys from St. Paul's were good friends and nice guys, "safe dates for nice girls," Montgomery remembers.

"I was so very proud of my roommates," Houghton says.

The Eliot House residents never locked their doors, and always wore coats and ties to dinner.

Houghton remembers being inspired by certain subjects he studied as an undergraduate--and being bored by others.

"I took a course in the Old Testament, and got really inspired, and then I would do very well," he says. "I would poop along, and then bang-oh, something shot up, and I would get excited."