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Man of mythic memory who has
learned much, but still
remembers on which page he
first read it at Cornell, c.1959,
man who could have been entrusted
by the ancients to memorize Homer’s
epics and carry them across the
millennia with punctuation
still in place, man who led his
students in Greek marathons, barefoot,
giving them both frostbite and life-long
inspiration, man of quick wit and
ready laugh, aficionado of the pun,
the bad joke, and the good-hearted
wisecrack, man of a million anecdotes
and stories, some of which even
happened, man who brought to his
housemaster post all the passions of
a birder, and learned all of their
their names, whether warblers,
shrikes, or rock doves, and
their many songs and trills,
man who commanded his classroom
like a ship’s captain born to the
sea, man who loved this school
and, importantly, the students
in it, found good in nearly all,
unloveables not excluded,
man proud to have been a teacher
here, one who helped many, man
who journeyed from Ithaca, gave
Lincoln-Sudbury all he had, and
now must find a way to sail back.
June 2002