15 January 2000
Birthday messages for Gil
It's Greg Thorn's birthday too!
Greg Thorn sends best wishes for your birthday - and many more.  Please keep writing those references (NA Polypores, ...) that the rest of us use almost every day!  P.S.: It's MY birthday too (Jan 15) - do you think you could get me to Hawaii for some collecting with you all, instead of writing General Biology lectures in Laramie WY?
Hi Gil, Happy Birthday. You are now officially older than dirt: but, as George used to say when commenting on his age, "well, I'm still upright." When you get tired of Hawaii, please plan on visiting us in Riverside.  Love to see you again. Ciao for now.  Mike Stanghellini
Gary Samuels sends Gil best wishes for his birthday!
... and Dick Benjamin says to please include him in the list of Gil's friends wishing him a happy birthday! 
... and John Menge too! 
Peg and Jim Adaskaveg say,"We wish you a very happy birthday and we look forward to seeing you soon in Tucson!" 
Let's celebrate another year of touring the mountains of Arizona in search of both fungi and companionship. Deb Young
If we were all together we would have a masked birthday ball and Bob Blanchette would come as Ganoderma
Happy Birthday, Gil. I hope your Ganodermas collected in Hawaii are all as big as this one!  Bob Blanchette
Gil, Very Happy Birthday!  Sue and I ate oyster poyboys on Lake Pontchartrain for lunch today.  We watched the pelicans foraging and I couldn't help but think of you leading us around Arizona. Sorry we can't be with you on this one. Look forward to celebrating in person later. Our best wishes--as ever, Peter & Sue Cotty 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIL  :) I wish there were some way we could all get together and have one big rowdy party on this day for you, lots of food and drink, and good friends to talk with, kind of like an MSA Social/Auction. We will do just that in Vermont this summer if you are out this way for the meetings, that is have food and drink and get a little rowdy.  If you don't make it, I may just have to keep that threat of visiting and collecting with you in Arizona. I hope this year and the ones to follow bring you many happy times and lots of good memories, and a few good fungi.  Like the rest of your friends, I wish I were in Hawaii with you, Don, Jack and Karen collecting, it is 10 below here in central New York today!  My warmest wishes for you on this day! Aloha --Tim Baroni
Birthday Greetings Gil,  Mycology is alive and well in Missouri.  This semester I've got 44 students in my undergraduate "Biology of the Fungi" class.  This means 2 very full lab sections.  It's a blast to teach motivated students, but then you knew that.  Applied mycology is alive and well here too.  Johann and I have a really cool (6 year) project to figure out how to grow gourmet and medicinal mushrooms as part of agroforestry systems.  Talk about being paid to play. All else is well.  Our girls are 4 and 2; they know more about mushrooms than most toddlers.  Recently, Siri (2 yr) saw a picture of a logging truck and declared "Mushroom logs".  It pays to start them young.  Love, hugs and best birthday wishes from Jeanne, Johann (and Emily and Siri too) 
Hey Gil:  Happy 75th Birthday!!!  I can't believe that we have knocked around this country for this length of time leaving wood chips, but few wood-inhabitors, in our wake.  I owe much of my success to our association and have enjoyed every minute of it.  This is a good time to thank you for all of the time you invested in me.  You have been an inspiration and I look forward to another 35+ years of working with you.  Many thanks.  Happy birthday! Hal Burdsall 
Dear Bob, I and the government of Norway are joining the long line of people who want to congratulate you as you pass the milestone! Very good to know that you are still in the field and that the fire is burning  - we need that sort of people at the taxonomy front. There is no need for me to hide how much I have appreciated our friendship both professionally and privately and both Ingbjorg and I are many times musing over the many experiences we shared. Especially the trip to Finland and Estonia had many highlights, not so pleasant when we stayed there without our luggage and no one speaking English. However, the good deeds will save the world as we say in Norway and the next day we were all in good shape again. Thus, I hope to see you again soon, it is a pity that we never actually had the time to do collecting together in America, we must try to remove that spot on our CV. I will go down to 60% working time by 1 March to do more mycology and less paper work and teaching at under grad level. Thus, opportunities are coming our way. Sincerely,  Leif Ryvarden 
Dear Gil,  I think a Birthday Page is a highly appropriate gift for you! Now we just need to get someone to PAGE you to tell you to check it.  And after all, People of AGE can still read the screen (with their glasses) even if some of us can't figure out how we were supposed to post the message. Folks who are fond of Poster Art Genteel Editions of birthday cards may balk at Putting Aimless Greetings Endlessly where they can be read by Probably All Gradstudents Ever matriculated under your Patient And Gentle Explanations.  I will refrain from Problematic Attempts at Grandiose Eclogues, and simply say, Please Accept Gargantuan Encomia from Sandy Anagnostakis.
Gil, Thanks for reintroducing me to the West! I will always treasure my time with you in Tucson and hope we can get together again for some poking around in the woods.  Plan on a trip to Colorado this summer. Happy birthday!Jim Worrall
Happy Birthday, Gil! Cordial greetings from the Estonian mycologists with whome you met ten years, four months and two weeks ago in Estonian forests. If weather is too hot in Hawaii, you will be welcome here again. It is snowing every day, but polypores survive!  Your friends Erast, Ilmi, Urmas
Gil,  Mary and I are bemoaning the fact that you are not here. Curt asked about you last night (Thursday) and I indicated that I had forgotten when you were coming home.  I indicated I thought two weeks, then Mary said , she thought you would be home soon  - "as we only had two sets of tickets". Hope you are having fun, we miss spending your birthday with you.  Do NOT forget, we have the bone! Have fun and Remember the Alamo!  Michael Pfeiffer 
Bob:  Happy Birthday!!  What an occasion.  One of my most cherised moments is the time you came to Humboldt State University to give a talk to the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society.  You also lead a Saturday field trip for the Forest Pathology Class.  I still use your comments and that field trip in several lectures I do for the class.  May you enjoy your birthday and the all the celebration. Fond regards, Dave Largent
TO BOB GILBERTSON ON THE OCCASION OF HIS BIRTHDAY.  I don't see you very often anymore; I've missed a couple of MSA meetings the last few years, and you aren't writing or calling about Murrill's types; so I haven't been able to keep up with you. I understand that you will be celebrating your birthday in Hawaii. Gee, the best that I can do is my wife taking me out to the local "Sonny's Bar-B-Que" for a treat!  I hope that you have a great Birthday Celebration and that many more will be coming your way.  Jim Kimbrough
Subject: Message for Gilbertson! Birthday greetings from Spring Creek, North Carolina, and may there be many more.  It is nice to know there are mycolgists older than myself.  Take care!  Ken Wells
Happy 2000 and Happy Birthday Gil!  May your presents be filled with wood decay fungi!  Bob Bandoni 
Dear Gil:  Heartfelt wishes on this great occasion from the heartland of the USA to you in exotic Hawaii.  I'll bet you are so enthused about Hawaiian fungi that you almost forgot what day this is.  And I'll also bet you don't feel even one year older.  With age comes wisdom, it is said.  This applies to you, I'm sure, but not necessarily to all of us. General Douglas McArthur was wrong.  Old mycologists don't fade away, they just keep churning out research.  Keep up the good work while you're having fun!  All of us wish you the very best.  Bob Lichtwardt 
Happy birthday to Gil upon whose shoulders many of us stand --you must be mired to your ears by now.  Meredith 
AND THE LAST WORD FROM MYCOLOGY'S POET LAUREATE....
On Saturday Gil's seventy five,
    and he's the top man on polypores alive.
        Says Gil. "if that true,  I have so much to do
            that I'll work til I'm a hundred and five."
A Professor from Tucson grew old,
    describing the details of mold.
        As he turned 75, he said "its no jive;
            I rather have brown rot than gold."

Happy Birthday Gil!  Tom Bruns

Belated birthday wishes have come in
To Gil:  Congratulations on your 75th birthday and best wishes for the years to come.  I have appreciated your fellowship in mycological endeavors and am grateful we were colleagues. I remember the meetings in Tucson, and your capable; leadership of the foray.  It never occurred to me then that I would have a daughter living in Tucson one day.  She works for the city in area of environmental management.  I think we lived in the best days of mycology, bridging the days between strict alpha taxonoomy and the new technology.  We've known some great individuals on this journey and I am glad for the opportunity to have known you.   All best wishes, Roger Goos
Dear Gil,  Sorry I am belated in adding a Happy Birthday to your website.  I hope you had the best birthday ever and enjoyed some excellent collecting in Hawaii.  I sincerely hope that in your zeal to round up all the slash in that Hawaii landfill, you didn't inadvertently introduce chiggers to the Island State. Thank you for teaching me about the fungi; I may not be much of a practicing mycologist anymore, but I have introduced a section on the fungi in the Microbiology course that now takes up most of my teaching time.  Hope to see you sometime this coming year.   Page
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21 January 2000