I cannot even remember how many years I'd already known Jelle prior to my own coming to BU from The New England Aquarium. We got to know each other a little better when I got roped into helping BU plan a new aquarium facility, partly to house Jelle's smelly catfish. By smelly I mean that he kept them due to their dependence upon olfaction as a major part of their lives. It was a major part of Jelle's life, also. Through his agency and that of our mutual colleague Rudi Strickler, I wound up teaching part time in the BUMP program in 1989. This gradually evolved into a job offer engineered largely by Jelle and our colleague Richard Primack that resulted in my swimming from Central Wharf to the MBL-Comm Ave commute in September of 1994. I covered what had been Jelle's Boston beat (teaching intro Marine BIology), freeing Jelle to spend more time at the MBL in Woods Hole. I got to matriculate for one or two months every fall, plus various meetings, sometimes crashing at Jelle's house- always a major social and musical event- a different kind of beat. Jelle was incredibly tolerant of my piano playing- we loved to play this or that bit of Claude Bolling's Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano together. We shared a lot of feelings about the nature of science and how it should be done, and also the huge importance of music in both of our lives. I do not know how many people realize that Jelle was not only a very good flautist, but actually a superb one. He played with a light touch but great heart, bringing the instrument to life in a way that I've heard few do. It was so good that you might not even notice me butchering the piano part. Jelle's house was a Woods Hole sanctuary- the door was always open, you could just sort of waltz in and out as if you were family, which in a sense you would be. You'd also wind up spending time with one or another of his very cool kids, friends, lovers, etc. I met a lot of wonderful people there. Without Jelle I doubt I'd have had this great career at BU, but more importantly, I would have missed an enormous amount of scientific, social, and cultural richness that has gone a long way to define not only our relationship, but also who I've become. I will always be grateful to Jelle for that, and I will always miss him..
top of page
bottom of page