While I was in college at U. of Wisc., Madison, in addition to numerous
destructive or deviant behaviors, I learned to love early morning walks
and the glory of birds. In an unusual combination of these, a friend and I
bicycled out to Baraboo to visit a place we'd heard of there called the
International Crane Foundation. Unfortunately, the office desk informed us
(after our ~30 mile bike ride) that tours were by advance arrangement
only.

As we were leaving the parking lot, we noticed what seemed to us to be an
open invitation: a group of well-dressed strollers headed down the path
towards the crane facility. Of course, we ditched the bikes and joined
them. We soon noticed that the tour was being led by a very knowledgable
fellow (who turned out to be George Archibald (sp?), one of the founders
of the Foundation), that our fellow tourers were all accompanied by
binoculars that cost more than Fred and I earned in a year (combined), and
that the group seemed to have been well traveled. One particularly
distinguished looking tall fellow with striking white hair was continually
saying things like "I last saw this species as we were traveling down the
Zambeze (sp?) R. by steamer...". This gentleman later dropped back to the
back of the group to chat with Fred and I, and seemed to be a bit amused
at our having joined the tour. He was addressed as Roger by the others,
and I have cherished the notion ever since that I once went birding with
RTP. (I still don't know for sure whether I did or not.)

Tom Besser
tbesser at vetmed.wsu.edu