Al's Celebration of Life

memories of al

From: Sharon Salisbury
Date: 30 Sep 1999
Time: 19:00:17
Remote Name: 209.204.145.205

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June 1, 1997

Dear Al, I started this on the above date but it took me two years to finish it. I will never forget you. Love, Sharon Salisbury, September 30, 1999. I inherited my love of nature from my parents. However, they were very religious people and thus the natural world, although admired, was gratefully accepted as a gift from God. There was no need to understand why things were a certain way nor question how they worked. Beautiful flowers were so because God made them so for our appreciation. Death and disease were the result of Satan's fall and would be destroyed at the second coming. I learned to observe and enjoy nature, but lacked any significant curiosity about what I saw. When my husband and I moved from Los Angeles to Mill Valley in the 70's, I thought the place beautiful, but had no intention of staying. I was told that COM was a great college and to pass the time, began taking classes in preparation for a degree in zoology. I really had no idea what a zoologist did, I just wanted to work with animals. In the meantime, our marriage, long-ailing, finally died and I found myself alone in a strange place, with no friends, no family, no job and a 10-year-old boy to raise on my own. I was very depressed. It was about this time that I started hiking on Mt. Tam alone. It seemed to be the only solace. As I walked, I began noticing plants and animals and realized I knew nothing about them. I signed up for a class about the Natural History of Marin, having some vague idea that I should get a feel for this place I was now living. I had never given much thought to the places I had lived. I guess I had a lot of time to think once I was single. I met Al for the first time on the Verna Dunshee trail on the first day of this class. Al's enthusiasm was infectious. I can still see his grinning face and hear his excited voice, saying, "Guys, this is really neat." And indeed, suddenly, everything was neat. I learned how Mt. Tam was created---not by a volcano, as I had always imagined, but by plate tectonics. I peered through a hand lens at stamens, pistils, stigmas and anthers. I discovered that those beautiful markings on the flowers, were not, as I had been told, God's artistic whimsy, but were critical landing patterns for pollinators. The buzzards, riding the thermals high over the mountains, were actually turkey vultures and played a vital role in the ecosystem. Some plants had leathery leaves to reduce water loss, while others had gray foliage or needle-like leaves. Redwood trees had flattened needles on the bottom and rounded needles on the top to allow more sunlight to reach the lower part of the tree. Under a hand lens, spiders and insects became enchanting, beautiful creatures. There is a story in the Bible about Saul riding to Tarsus, when he had a vision and the scales fell from his eyes. That is how I felt that day. Suddenly, the world became a place of infinite beauty, wonder and diversity. A wall of generic plants now came into focus as a multitude of individual, unique organisms. I noticed the differences in habitats and the animals and plants that lived in them. I learned about upwelling and the relationship between fog and the coast redwoods. I suddenly saw, for the first time, the beautiful place I had been living for six years. And the more I learned, the more beautiful things were and the more I wanted to learn. It was a self-stoking fire that started that day. What I will always remember about Al, beside his love and knowledge of nature, was his tenderness and compassion for the human animal. The more I learned about the environment and understood the terrible impact humans have on the planet, I found myself becoming decidedly misanthropic. Al, however, had a heart large enough to encompass us all. When strangers would walk up during one of our field trips, he would invite them to join us. Impassive faces would break into delighted grins. They had been turned onto nature by Al. Many of my favorite Al stories involve a woman named Florentine. Florentine is an elderly, very eccentric, sweet woman, who looks very much like a character from one of Beatrix Potter's books. She wears old, wrinkled skirts, holey sweaters and has bright, squinty eyes like Mrs. Badger. In the middle of a lecture, the door would open and Florentine would shuffle in, cradling some precious find from nature, walk up to Al and ask him what is was. Al never missed a beat. He grinned, put one arm around her, asked how she had been and would seriously regard the object she had in her hands. He never once reproached her and his obvious affection for her was touching. After she shuffled out, he would chuckle as he told us how she was a little odd, but that she was really an interesting woman. One day we went on a marine biology trip to Tomales Point. The walk to the tidepools was long and once there, you had to scoot down a very steep embankment on your rear and then drop several feet to the rocks below. I could barely do it, but Al stationed himself at the bottom and held out his hand for everyone. Getting Florentine down was rather like moving a piano down a flight of stairs. People at the top, along the steep trail and at the bottom all held their collective breath as they lowered her down. Al smiled, offered her his hand and led her off to the tide pools with all the gallantry of a gentleman leading his lady onto the dance floor. She stayed close to the cliffs as the rocks were incredibly slippery, but she seemed to enjoy herself. After we had finished tide pooling, we once again hoisted Florentine back up the wall and set off for the parking lot. Florentine was in the long process of building a native rock wall around her little house on Mt. Tam and to that purpose would collect rocks every time we went on a field trip. On the long walk back, I couldn't help but notice that Florentine was struggling to drag her backpack behind her. Before I could intercede, a man kindly offered to carry it for her. He bent down, slung it up in the air and let out a cry of astonishment. "Christ, Florentine, what the hell do you have in here." She feigned innocence. He opened the pack and there were at least five rocks, some the size of a flattened basketball. The man was distinctly annoyed with her. Telling her she would have to carry her own damn rocks, he strode off. Murmuring condolences, I scurried to catch up with the group. Back at the parking lot, the entire class had gathered around the cars. The only people missing were Al and Florentine. There was no need to place bets as to what was going to appear around the bend. We leaned against the cars and waited. About half an hour later, Florentine shuffled into view and behind her, sweating and staggering under the weight of her backpack was Al. He was still smiling. A few weeks later I attended a party at Florentine's to help build the wall and when I got there, fashionably late, there was Al, helping to build the wall for this odd woman, using the stones he had lugged at least three miles. I don't know whether there is a life after death, but if there is, then Al is having a great time checking out the natural wonders. I do know he changed a lot of lives and all of those people are out there, changing more lives. Either way, Al achieved some sort of immortality. Thanks, Al, for showing me that life is, indeed, very neat.

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From: Melba Kartman
Date: 19 Dec 2005
Time: 21:52:44
Remote Name: 67.19.214.226

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