Beauty and Ecology

By Jenny Ramstetter ’81

I thought I might do better today if I started by thinking of someone else’s words instead of my own. In January, I began Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, and then I found Gathering Moss, by the same author, on Bob’s bookshelf.

In her essay, “Asters and Goldenrod,” Kimmerer reflects on her journey as a botany graduate student. She finds brilliant goldenrod in flower growing alongside its perfect counterpart the “full-on royal purple,” New England Aster. She writes, “Purple and gold .  .  . a regal procession in complementary colors. I just wanted to know why. Why do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone? Why this particular pair? . . . is it only happenstance that this magnificence of purple and gold end up side by side? What is the source of this pattern? Why is the world so beautiful?  . . . It seemed like a good question to me. But my adviser said, ‘It’s not science.’” I knew Bob would have had a much more interesting response for a student who asked those questions, and I thought of how Bob shaped my life as a scientist and as a person.

I grew up mostly in Colorado, but my mom and brother and I moved to California for two years. As an 8-year old, I lived two streets away from Bob in Isla Vista as he began grad school at UCSB, though I can’t say if our paths ever crossed. Along the beach, I explored tide pools most every day, and on the bluffs above I made flutes from the non-native bamboo stalks. I watched in amazement as monarchs migrated in an undulating wave along the coast in groves of eucalyptus. On school trips, we went to the Santa Ynez Mountains and, according to my teacher, we saw one of the last California Condors flying free at that time. Back in Colorado, I returned to feeding grasshoppers blades of grass, rescuing baby birds, having garter snakes wrap around my arm, and chasing robins from the worms they were stretching from the soil. From elementary school through high school, I was fascinated by any living critter, but talked myself into the idea that I wasn’t good at science or math, and most of my science teachers did little to dissuade me of that notion. Instead of being a scientist, I would simply love the beauty in nature and leave its study to others. Ten years after my time along the Pacific coast, I headed east to Marlboro sight unseen. On my first day at the college, a VW van parked in front of the dining hall and filled with tropical plants and two parrots and Popcorn the dog piqued my interest. A day later I was on an Amtrak train to Montreal with the owner of that van and others here today so that we could ride our bikes the length of Vermont before starting the semester. On that bike ride from Montreal to Marlboro, we stopped along the road under the shade of trees I didn’t know and Bob picked up an acorn and asked many questions while admiring the acorn. I knew none of the answers, but I wanted to find out, and Bob’s awe and curiosity in a simple acorn were contagious.

These 40 years later, I’ve shared many moments of ecology and appreciation for life’s beauty with Bob including a desert biology field trip that ended in California. We went to the Santa Ynez mountains, and a large Coulter pine cone now lives in the science building from that trip. The last magical days of the field trip were spent on Santa Cruz Island off of the coast of Isla Vista hosted by one of Bob’s graduate school buddies and life-long friends; I thought back to when I stood on the beach as a kid looking out at Santa Cruz and wondering what treasures that island held. As with many of you, Bob was my teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend. I treasure it all, but I suppose I circle back to beauty most of all. A year ago April, my kids were on a Junior High class trip to Costa Rica, and I emailed Bob to tell him that they’d just seen a Resplendent Quetzal in the Monteverde cloud forest. Bob wrote back: “Yikes. I hope they understand what this boils down to: ‘The most spectacular bird in the western hemisphere,’ quoting Roger Tory Peterson.”

Bob saw beauty in spectacular birds and in the acorn. And he saw beauty in all of you and in a sweeping motorcycle ride. We will remain touched in both small and in life-changing ways by Bob. In moments when I might inspire or support family, friends, and students, I know it’s partly because of what I learned from Bob. Though it’s not a word he would use, I am blessed by all of you who knew Bob and cared for him and helped me so much during his illness and death. I am so grateful. I especially thank Brian and Senait and Zinabu who have lived with the burden of my sadness for many days and months now. In the past quarter century, the few times when Brian couldn’t fully comfort me, he would call Bob who would scoot over on his motorcycle, or car if need be. Bob would listen, usually make me laugh, and help me to figure out what to do next.

Now, I turn to all of you who have been touched by Bob, near and far and friends who couldn’t be here today. I know that the beauty of Bob’s life and our bonds together will help us all to care for each other and to care for the beauty of life around us just a bit more.