My colleague Eric Lawrence sends along this remembrance:
bq. Lee was my mentor. Many people claim Lee mentored them, but I have a stronger claim to make. Lee was formally appointed my mentor when I entered the political science as a junior faculty member, and I believe I was his last mentee. My department chair never told me why Lee was appointed my mentor. Perhaps it was because we both hailed from the Midwest, Lee from South Dakota, me from Iowa. Perhaps it was because Lee loved biking in pink and I used to ride a pink bicycle. Or perhaps Lee drew the short straw. Whatever the reason, Lee taught me several things in his capacity as my mentor, but I’ll discuss just one.
bq. Lee read my papers and provided advice. Lee was tough. The first time he read one of my papers, he warned me before giving me his comments that he didn’t hate the paper but he thought it needed quite a bit of improvement. After reading his comments, I failed to see any evidence that he didn’t hate it. After working through the comments a second time a few days later, I convinced myself that Lee wanted me to succeed and that he had demonstrated that he respected me by being tough. It was either that or find a new job. As I write papers now, I try to adhere to Lee’s advice as best I can, though I’ll never match his pace or grace.
bq. Although Lee was my mentor, we did not have a one-way relationship. Outside the faculty lunch room, my primary interaction with him was to provide him advice and help him with graphing and analyzing data. Lee taught me the importance of being able to say no, but I never said no to him. One day, after explaining a series of steps to take in order to do what he wanted to do, I told him to take the book that laid out the explanation and to keep it. I assured him I had another copy of the book at home, so I wasn’t even being particularly generous. He accepted the book, saying “Thanks. That reminds me…Are you going to be in your office a while?” I said yes, and he said he’d call me in a bit. Later he called and told me to come to the front of our building. Lee was parked outside, and he told me to take the box of books from his car. Inside the box was a full set of the “little green Sage books,” a series of statistical monographs, treasure for a bibliophile with completist tendencies. I thanked Lee in appropriate Midwestern fashion with “gee thanks, Lee.” I brought the box up to my office, but left it on the floor, as the box had a dual meaning to me. For one, it was Lee’s way of thanking me for the help I’d provided him over the years. On the other hand, I didn’t like that Lee was giving away his possessions during a period of time when his chemotherapy wasn’t going so well. I decided it would be bad karma to shelve the books and claim them as mine, so I kept the box on the floor for many months. Lee rallied from that period, however, so I gave in and shelved the books, in order, as Lee and I agreed was the only way books should be shelved.
bq. If you continue to follow the tributes to Lee here, you will read many words of praise. It should be said, however, that Lee had some faults. He was a great lover of dogs, but for some strange reason he also loved cats. He could be persnickety about jokes. For example: “Hey Lee, did you hear about the Iowa farmer who loved his wife so much he told her?” was met with “It was a South Dakota farmer, and he _almost_ told her.” Also, he sometimes had a hard time admitting defeat. My favorite argument with him concerned whether Lubbock is in the Texas panhandle. Confronted with the escalating evidence of first person testimony of an Amarillo native, wikipedia, and finally Frederick Rathjen’s classic _Texas Panhandle Frontier_ (reissued in 1998 by Texas Tech Press, located in Lubbock no less), Lee refused to budge from his position that Lubbock was part of the panhandle. So while he was a great colleague, mentor, and friend, he wasn’t perfect.
bq. In the last week of Lee’s life, Forrest Maltzman (our department chair) and Lee’s wife Carol arranged for small groups of Lee’s colleagues to meet with him. I was fortunate to be able to visit him with John and Jim Goldgeier. Lee was physically weak by then, but he was remarkably engaged and animated during our conversation. His health never came up. Instead, we covered department business for a good chunk of time, then turned to Lee’s recent wedding[1], Jim’s son’s indoor track events, GW basketball, Mardi Gras, and a range of other topics. Carol suggested we should let Lee rest, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways, dreading it would be our last time seeing Lee. The next day, John and I shared our common impression of how remarkably similar our conversation had been to a normal lunch conversation. The only difference, for me, anyway, was that instead of going into my office to work, I got into my car and cried. Lee will be greatly missed.
fn1. That is a story for another post.