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UC Davis Magazine

Volume 25 · Number 4 · Summer 2008

Letters

Illustration: piano

Bittersweet Note

With a heavy heart I read of the imminent passing of Room 115 (spring ’08 issue), soon to join other sacred relics of the past: the library’s LPs with their boxed up phonograph players and the warm, dull hum of Ms. Flower’s IBM Selectric.

The hard starkness of 115 with the deadening weight of its bleak-green doors was a place of passage for us: We performed one another’s compositions, fulfilled our performance requirements at noon and rehearsed our ensemble pieces. Strangely, I don’t recall any of us ever “choking” a performance in the cradle of that cold cavern. The memory of the intimacy largely brought on by the beaming support of our professors seated in the front rows and the soothing rush of air when the doors opened, like the intake of an astonished breath, draws an involuntary smile from me each time. There is comfort in the unwavering roots of one’s memories.

In reality, it’s a sad reminder that the comfort of believing some things will never change is an illusion: only the music remains.

Ruth Su ’78, music
Los Altos

Editor’s note: Music 115’s role as a recital hall will be retired with the construction of a 400-seat recital hall. For more on the new facility, see the story on page 39 of the print issue (not available online).

 

Cosmic Convergence

That UC Davis Magazine article on the cosmos and the physics department at UC Davis [“Cosmic Convergence,” spring ’08 issue] was the best article on science that I have EVER read in 40 years in this game. Superb job.

Richard Lander
Distinguished Professor
Emeritus

More Dirty Work

[Re: “Dirty Work and Dream Jobs,” spring ’08 issue]

My husband-to-be and I met at Picnic Day 1956, married and continued on with our UC Davis education, both of us getting jobs — really gladly getting any job we could find!

My husband, Orlan, went to work in the agronomy department, making metal tags for the seed bags, and I went to work in the “Bee Hive” — the apiary department. Orlan’s job included hefting the heavy sacks around, stacking them, etc., which benefited him greatly since he was the center on the Aggie varsity football team.

My job entailed sitting hunched over a microscope artificially inseminating queen bees, keeping exacting records and of course not “relaxing” either the “donor” or the “recipient” too much so they died happy instead of living a productive life.

Both were good jobs, kept mac and cheese on the table and, of course, provided entertainment whenever someone asked “What did you do?” at Davis.

Thanks for the memories; as usual reading the UC Davis Magazine is a fun adventure. Keep up the good work.

Sheila M. Friedli

Simi Winery Shift

I was pleased to read about Steve Reeder ’79 at Simi Winery [back cover, spring ’08 issue]. However, I’m sure he would be disconcerted to read that Simi Winery has somehow moved from Healdsburg in Sonoma County to Napa Valley!

Merry Edwards
Merry Edwards Winery
Sebastopol

Photo: Conway and Chertok

Correction

On page 19 of our spring issue we misidentified the location of the photo taken of physicists John Conway and Maxwell Chertok — they were shown with the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) near Geneva.