Sign of the times

I was at the library today, in the used book section, they were selling their reference copy of Karl F. Lagler’s Fishes of the Great Lakes.  Dr. Lagler was an influential and very well respected ichthyologist . I was fortunate to have him as a professor.

Dr. Lagler was an extremely interesting and entertaining individual.  I always made sure to sit within earshot of him on the bus when we went on field trips.  He had a ton of great stories.  One of my favorites was for some reason or other, he had applied rotenone to a pond on a farmer’s field.  The next day the farmer called and said 12 of his cows had died.  Lagler told him it couldn’t be because of the rotenone, it was safe, so safe he’d come over and drink a glass of it.  He said he was sweating bullets as he drove over to the farm, he wasn’t exactly sure what might happen to him if he was to actually drink the stuff.  When he got out of his car at the farm, the farmer came out and apologized for bothering him.  He went on to explain there was a thunderstorm the previous night, and maybe the cows got struck by lightning.  Lagler quickly agreed, got back in his car, drove home and had a couple of stiff drinks.