15 January 2000
Happy birthday, Gil, mycologist for the new century!
On the occasion of his birthday Robert L. Gilbertson sends postcards from the Big Island to all his friends.  Gil has mail on the next page (see the link at the bottom of this page).
Dateline Hilo -- What promises to be a memorable event will be held on the evening of Saturday, January 15, 2000 in a lush tropical setting at the home of Donald and Helen Hemmes, Hilo, Hawaii.  In addition to the guest of honor, Robert L. Gilbertson of Tucson, Arizona, other invited guests include Jack Rogers, Pullman, Washington; Frederick Spiegel, Fayetteville, Arkansas; and Karen Nakasone, Madison, Wisconsin. During the evening the festivities will be interrupted to let Gilbertson receive greetings from the mainland via the Internet.  An account of the event will appear in a follow-up article. 
Jamie Platt baked a cake for Gil (see below). 
 

 



Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.  --Toast given by Andrew Jackson for the Jefferson Birthday Celebration in 1830.

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.  --Oliver Wendell Holmes on the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1889).

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true sucess is to labour. --Robert Louis Stevenson, 1880.


Gilbertson genealogy provides evidence of good mycological stock
Gilbertson serves as MSA poster boy
Service to MSA leads to higher office
Join MSA and ride with the National Fungus Patrol
Join MSA and denude Hawaii with a hand ax
The hand of Gilbertson
Gilbertson as officer (search in page several times)
Gilbertson wins distinguished honors (search in page)
Gilbertson, plant doctor
Gilbertson does research around the world
Hawaii (scroll on down the page)
U.S. Gulf Coast
and Mexico, Alaska, the Sonoran Desert, and many more
Write on, Gilbertson (and we can be the first to write an online review)
North American Polypores
European Polypores
Fungi that decay ponderosa pine
Favorite Gilbertson collecting localities

"Gil Was There Story Contest" prize winner is Emory Simmons.  Gil, Emory, Don McLain, Anton Slish, and Louella Wersub were at the MSA/AIBS meeting at Purdue some years ago. There were no bars in West Lafayette, so the group of young mycologists was at the bar of the big hotel across the Wabash River in Lafayette, Indiana.  Emory was to catch what now would be called a commuter flight from West Lafayette to Indianapolis, or somewhere.  At that time only small propeller planes did this job.  After drinking too long the mycologists realized that Emory was about to miss his flight.  In a rush, they all piled into a car, tore across the bridge, and out to the airfield.  A plane was just taxiing away from the terminal shed.  Don dashed out of the car, and actually ran in front of the plane and waved it down!  As it happened, it was not Emory 's plane.  His was the next one -- and the bunch of imbibers laughed the whole thing off.  Oh, to be young and irresponsible again, says Emory.  Emory sends his best wishes to Gil.

This is the cake story.  Jamie is the mycological daughter of Joey Spatafora; she is doing a postdoc with her mycological uncle, John Taylor.  (Her mycological grandmother is proud of her, even more so because she has won MSA awards).  Jamie was married this past year in the Philippines to Francisco Camacho (Jim Trappe's offspring), and Francisco's aunts made this beautiful fungus wedding cake for them. 
Birthday messages for Gil
Meredith Blackwell
15 January 2000