Fish for Friday

In memoriam

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

We dedicate today's column to our dear friend and colleague Contributing Editor Tom Lowe, who died a week ago today, early morning in hospital in Berkeley, California. He will be sorely missed. He is greatly missed already.

The news of Tom's death comes at such an odd moment, as I had just unearthed a 1987 note from Tom. He had made a print out of some icons and written the meanings on the back of the page. This was shortly after the birth of my son Christopher.
    I was going to send a copy to him and thank him again for thinking of me and Chris so many years ago. [Click images to enlarge.]
                                                                            –Morissa

My condolences to you and Tom's many friends and associates. The last time Tom and I emailed he seemed to be on the upswing; this is a shock. Out of all the people you have involved in Moristotle & Co., Tom was one of the people I felt like I "knew" the best and liked the most. Even though I never met Tom in person, he seemed an old friend and kindred spirit.

I'll miss you, Tom. You gave light to a dark world and it will be a little dimmer with your pasting.

I can't believe it! Had no idea he was ill. I will miss his wit. We were in the high school senior play. He was great fun.

Tom was one of the most creative, artistic people I’ve ever known. The world has grown dimmer with his passing. His talents will be missed.

What The New York Times said Wednesday of Galway Kinnell ["Galway Kinnell, Plain-Spoken Poet, Is Dead at 87"] could about as well have been said of Tom Lowe, with photography being substituted for poetry:

“Galway Kinnell cares about everything,” the poet and novelist James Dickey once observed. Over the years he lent passionate support to the antiwar movement, to freedom of expression in repressive countries, to environmental causes and civil rights. In 1963 he went to work for the Congress of Racial Equality, helping to register black voters in Louisiana — an effort that got him thrown in jail, with a pimp and a car thief for cellmates.
    Through it all, he held that it was the job of poets to bear witness. “To me,” he said, “poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.”

Andy Rooney had the gift of saying so much with so few words:

• The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.
• When you're in love, it shows.
• Just one person saying to me, "You've made my day!" makes my day.
• Having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

Last week's fishy review of The Judge got it right. They do get very carried away with swear words in movies these days!

Huh to Thor's dancing Mormon missionary! There are tap-dancing Catholic priests too!

A family is making their kids sit out in the yard on Halloween and pray for the trick or treaters. That might be the saddest thing I've read in a long time.

A stunning road. White Rim Road, Canyonlands National Park, Utah:

    The 100-mile White Rim Road loops around and below the Island mesa top and provides expansive views of the surrounding area. Trips usually take two to three days by four-wheel-drive vehicle or three to four days by mountain bike. All vehicles and bikes must remain on roads. ATVs and non-street legal dirt bikes are not permitted. Pets are also not permitted, even in vehicles. Under favorable weather conditions, the White Rim Road is considered moderately difficult for high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicles.
    The steep, exposed sections of the Shafer Trail, Lathrop Canyon Road, Murphy’s Hogback, Hardscrabble Hill, and the Mineral Bottom switchbacks make the White Rim loop a challenging mountain bike ride, and require extreme caution for both vehicles and bikes during periods of inclement weather.

Audubon tour in western North Carolina

Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica. This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert; the average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, ice.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.

Good news for restoring wild bison to their historic range on western tribal lands:
    Just last week, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed to transfer 146 wild bison to 25,000 acres of rolling prairie on Assiniboine and Sioux tribal lands on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. [National Wildlife Federation Action Fund on Facebook]

Limerick-inspired verse of the week:

Words of the salt-lake city Deseret,
where westward pioneers desiderate
    decamped
    and stamped
into the land city squares reiterate.

Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean