I have many memories of Susan. Most of them come from her ability to make me feel like I belonged here. Early on, she befriended me. At times, we acted like little kids. Long ago, when Brian C was chair, he gave me some kind of responsibility for the department website (I was actually among the most savvy in terms of the Internet—hard to believe now). One day, I found an online edition of Beowulf which had illustrations, like a text-heavy graphic novel. There was a picture of Grendel that had a word like “Grimm” next to it. I showed it to Susan and she laughed. Somehow we got the idea of substituting that picture for Kevin’s on the faculty page. We laughed so hard. Then, we started thinking of the possibilities: what pictures could we replace on the wall. Bob’s favorite tv character? Then we thought of Bruce Mann and hi work on drama. We came up with the idea of Elizabeth Taylor—that famous picture of her from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof wearing a slip with a martini in her hand. We put that on the page and giggled like 14-year olds. Of course, we had to show them to Kevin and Bruce. Bruce loved it. He didn’t like his picture. Not 5 minutes later, Bruce came down the hall to tell us Brian C saw it. Apparently, Bruce was going to pick up a candidate at the airport, and he wanted to send her a picture so she could recognize him. He goes to the website, and voila, there is Elizabeth Taylor! We felt like kids who had been caught throwing snowballs at cars. I loved Susan then. Smart, professional, and willing to go along with a stupid prank for a laugh. I miss that laugh. Full of life and joy.
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from Rob Anderson