Full Circle Associates

I had a flash from my past yesterday when I got an email from Chuck Amsler (that's him today at work to the right). Chuck was one of my classmates in a Marine Phycology course at the Duke Marine Lab in 1978, taught by Rick Searles. Chuck was tracking down members of the class to try and reconstruct a poem we wrote to Dr. Searles at the end of the course to share at a 50th Anniversary party for Rick and his wife, Georgie. We all adored Rick, so this felt like a small but meaningful contribution. Rick is one of those people who cares about his students as human beings and as intellectual beings. That care made a difference to many of us.

The culmination of the summer school experience required poetry. It was one of those times where the people, the learning and work, the setting, and the leadership all converged to create an amazing experience that was seared into our memories. We were in love with the algae, staying to work and play in the lab until late at night. We had a persistent inclination to tear-inducing laughter. We sang in the lab. We were, I think, 11 women and 2 men and the women were powerful, funny and a force to be reckoned with. Chuck was a real mensch to thrive in that pool of estrogen. We have not been able to track down the other guy, also named Rick, but my friend Leah recalled he was a football player with a photographic memory. In a class heavy with memorization of algal taxonomy, Rick's memory was a cause for a bit of jealousy.

We had a great cook at the lab who made banana pudding. One night I indulged in at least two helpings. After dinner I was not feeling so hot. I think I skipped the evening lecture by a cell biologist whose name I can't recall, but I do remember I took his course the fall before and got my first "C."

My stomach started to hurt more and more. Everyone in the women's dorm kept suggesting their home grown remedies to alleviate nausea, to no avail. Soon the pain located in my lower right belly. I asked my dear friend and roommate, Leah, "what side is my appendix on?" She said left. Luckily, that did not stop her from calling the aid unit at some point in the middle of the night as I deteriorated. They said "go to the hospital." So she drove me from Beaufort to Morehead City and before I knew it, I was headed into surgery to have my appendix out.

Nothing like a little surgery in the middle of your summer school, grad level course. But my friends would not let me down. They visited me in the hospital, torturing me with laughter so I would recover faster, and did not let me fall behind.

We finished the course with a dinner we made where every course had algae in it. If memory serves, that was the night the poem was read to Dr. Searles.

Chuck is now leading the University of Alabama's research team at the Palmer Station in Antarctica. I just spent an hour reading the lab team's blog (great reading) and strolling through my memories of 1978. Leah Weyerts (now Burke) and I remained fast friends all these years. Ironically, she became a physician! I can't wait to hear what Pamela, Judy, Paulette and Lucy are doing. I can't remember the other Rick's last name!

So it all circles back today. Chuck writing. The poem being reconstructed across the memories of some of our classmates. Reconnections, clear around to the South Pole.

Life is amazing.