I Once Was a Stranger ... (Part 2: "We Must Have Courage.)
We have waged our wars in the homelands of other people and other countries, and have no civilian experience of the destructiveness and misery brought about by modern total warfare. I began to understand this in the weeks following my first excursion as a teaching assistant with the Zoology Department’s field trip to Bangor, Wales.
As I settled in for my studies, I began to explore the City of Swansea and the Gower Peninsula, where the University serves as a gateway between the town and the most beautiful coastal countryside I have ever seen.
The poetry and prose of Dylan Thomas, the renowned Welsh poet, shaped my vision of the town and countryside. A Child’s Christmas in Wales extolled the Swansea I anticipated, but as the reality of my first visit sank in, I realized this vision had vanished; perhaps it had never existed. There were no narrow winding streets, no tiny shops and houses; instead, modern buildings and broad straight streets, banks, shiny new shops on the main avenue, and a covered marketplace adjacent to a contemporary cinema. The difference between my vision and my lived experience was profound. Was A Child’s Christmas in Wales nothing more than fantasy?
Over time, I would discover a few older areas representative of the old Swansea, as well as nearby open areas of cleared rubble, which were being prepared for new construction. Swansea was rebuilt as a modern city after the war. Twenty years after the end of World War II, the project was still in progress. London had seemed far further along in its recovery and was restored, not rebuilt in a plain modern style that I thought soulless. I preferred the poet’s vision. One Saturday, as I boarded a bus returning from a hike along the Gower Coast, I took a seat next to an older man. He looked at me and asked, “What’s the town like now?”
“Do you mean Swansea? Haven’t you been there?”
“1938, I hear it’s different since they bombed it. Haven’t been there since.”
I explained to him what I saw, and he thanked me. No longer curious, he seemed satisfied never to go to see for himself. It was no wonder.
The industrial and port facilities in the city made it of strategic importance during the war. There were over forty raids on the town. Finally, the heavy and sustained bombing by the German Luftwaffe that occurred from 19 to 21 February 1941 destroyed the city immortalized by Dylan Thomas.
Civilian casualties were high, yet people survived, rebuilt, and carried on with their lives. Human beings always seem to possess enormous resilience and hope in the face of disaster. I understand how fortunate we have been to have never experienced war in this way. It’s the one great lesson from my years living in Wales: our good fortune and the hope of resilience. I would see this again in the not-too-distant future.
I had met most of the current and newest graduate students during the Autumn field trip to Bangor. They were a diverse group with broad and distinctive interests and research goals in mind. Singhraja and I were the only foreign students; the others came from several universities, including Newcastle, Leeds, London, Oxford, and Cambridge, as well as three from Swansea, previously undergraduates in Zoology and Chemistry at the University College. Two of us were students of Professor Knight-Jones, and both of us were there to study the smaller, single-cell phytoplankton. These were to be my closest friends and colleagues for the next few years.
My background was primarily in lower plant physiology and taxonomy, including the description and naming of species. My undergraduate research at the University of Pennsylvania focused on the study of freshwater phytoplankton, and I had briefly explored theories of the atmospheric transport of protozoa and phytoplankton in aerosols formed by ocean waves. It was from this foundation that I began to discuss my research plans with Knight-Jones, and from him, learned that the Department was to get an electron microscope, one of the newest instruments available to science at the time. It opened some exciting prospects for my work.
Coincidentally, new research on marine phytoplankton appeared in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association, the official publication of the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, England (MBA). One was an electron microscopic and taxonomic study of Micrococcus, the organism that Prof Knight-Jomes had discovered, written by Irene Manton and Mary Parke. Irene Manton was the Professor of Botany at Leeds, and Mary Parke headed a group at the MBA that was building an extensive collection of pure cultures of marine phytoplankton. They were among the first to use electron microscopy to study marine phytoplankton, and I needed to establish a connection with them. I went straight from the library and knocked on my Professor’s door.
We rarely consider how the decisions we make, the path we choose in life, and the randomness of chance ultimately determine the outcome of the lives we end up living. My future opened and began unfolding on that day. As I entered his office, he was having lunch. Looking up, he smiled and said, “I wondered how long it would take.” I think I passed a test that day. Of course, he knew all about Manton’s and Parke’s work. He had provided the culture of Micrococcus. More importantly, he had been waiting for me to discover the paper in time for me to accompany him to a meeting of the MBA Board of Governors in the following week and meet with Mary Parke, who already knew about me.
Looking back now at the sequence of events that led me to study for my doctorate in Wales, it is astonishing how the randomness of my choices had led to these events - my chance letter to the Director of the MBA seeking information about study in Britain, his pointing me to Knight-Jones, an invitation to come, the spontaneity of my decision, and all that followed - my degree, my NATO fellowship at Plymouth, a post-doctoral appointment in New York and on and on.
The following Tuesday, we set out for Plymouth. At the time, the journey took approximately four hours because the Severn River Bridge was unfinished. Meeting with Mary Parke was a wonderful experience. In the years I spent time with her as a colleague and mentor, I found her to be one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever known. She was utterly selfless. During the three days I spent with her initially, she provided the training, skills, and guidance I would need to move forward in my planning and areas of concentration. I would focus on the group of phytoplankton known as Dinoflagellates,1 a large, diverse group of organisms that includes both marine and freshwater species. Some are toxic, causing red tides (HABs or harmful algal blooms), fish toxicity known as Ciguatera, and shellfish poisoning. Others form symbiotic associations with corals and other invertebrates. I would later work extensively on symbiotic and toxic forms, but for my dissertation, I would study their physiology and taxonomy using electron microscopy.
I was anxious to get to work, but the return drive to Swansea seemed endless. We were in holiday traffic. At one point, we were ascending a long, steep hill with several slow lorries (we call them trucks) ahead of us. The road was three lanes, with a passing lane in the center. Prof crossed into the passing lane, and the car’s engine strained as he tried to accelerate. We managed to come alongside the lorry when suddenly another lorry ahead pulled out to pass, blocking our way. Prof didn’t hesitate. He pulled over into the lane of oncoming traffic and pressed on. The engine strained as we gained on the second lorry. Time hesitated. Everything was in slow motion. Another lorry appeared in the lane for oncoming traffic. We were in the same lane, nearly level with the second lorry alongside us. Time froze. I looked back at the rear seat for Ian, the other student who came with us. He was on the floor with his hands over his head. I was speechless and didn’t want to distract Prof. He was saying something I couldn’t understand. My plans for my future hovered in the vacuum. Suddenly, we veered in ahead of the second lorry, then safely at last into the far lane. The oncoming lorry swept by with a roar. I finally understood what Knight-Jones said. “We must have courage.”. Indeed. My excellent plans fell back upon me, landing somewhere near the tumult going on in my stomach. “That was certainly exhilarating,” I said. Prof smiled. For the rest of the drive, it was silence; my friend Ian was back in his seat. All was right in the world. I was thinking how precious the chance I had was, and was grateful.
My work now had a clear purpose and goal. My surroundings were beautiful and comforting as the place where I now lived became more familiar. I felt at home. As the weather cleared, I began to explore the Gower Peninsula more thoroughly. The coastline was mesmerizing; coves and inlets, cliffs and broad vistas, were everywhere. The local bus system could take me anywhere. Hiking and the occasional pony-trekking with colleagues opened the area even more for me. The friendships and time I spent there are still with me. Magical places like Three Cliffs, Fairy Hill, Cwm Ivy, and the Worm’s Head are memories that reside here with me today.
One afternoon, a few days after Guy Fawkes Day, one of the senior techs came into the lab and asked if I was up to playing rugby. I knew his interest in this. A few years earlier, another American, Pete Dawkins, had a profound effect on the game of rugby. Dawkins was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and had been the quarterback at West Point before coming to Britain, where he played rugby. It was the American style of throwing a football that changed the way the game was played. Americans were scarce in Wales. As an American, I should know how to throw a football, which was the rationale behind my friend Greyson’s question. I agreed to come out, though I hadn’t played since High School as a running back. My naivety about rugby was on par with Greyson’s about football and my skill level. Nonetheless, I got kitted out and ventured out into the game. Initially, I adapted to the game, and my sideline passes were acceptable, although a bigger ball took some getting used to. Then I took a pass from the fly-half, was tackled, and went down. The scrum formed over me, and I suddenly had the living crap kicked out of me. I let go of the ball after I heard Greyson say, “Let go of the ball, you daft bugger.” Lesson learned—another one of those things where adaptation was a necessity. I continued to play for the first few years, and the lessons continued. Being a stranger is hard work if you want to belong.
The Spring and Summer in Wales were a gorgeous time, and before long, a year in Wales had passed, and I was living my new life. America seemed far away, and I was at home at last. Life was good.
To be continued. Thanks for being here and reading this. I hope you enjoy it enough to join me on my journey.
The dinoflagellates are a monophyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes constituting the phylum Dinoflagellata. They are primarily marine, but are also commonly found in freshwater habitats. Many dinoflagellates are photosynthetic, but a significant fraction of them are mixotrophic, combining photosynthesis with the ingestion of prey. Some species are endosymbionts of marine animals, playing a crucial role in the biology of coral reefs. Others are known for their toxicity, occurring as harmful algal blooms or Red Tides, and causing shellfish poisoning and Ciguatera when consumed by humans. Other dinoflagellates are unpigmented predators on other protozoa, and a few forms are parasitic. Some dinoflagellates produce resting stages, called dinoflagellate cysts or dinocysts, as part of their life cycles.
These recollections are a delight to read. These early days of graduate study are irrecoverable except in a memory capable of relishing what's important. And courage; indeed you must have courage. Pete Dawkins graduated the year before me but his athletic exploits are legendary and while he was nominally a back, he occasionally threw the ball so we were not surprised by his exploits at Oxford. He went from there to Vietnam, emerging as the youngest brigadier general since Douglas McArthur.