Mentors and Mitochondria: Lessons Learned with Ulrich Winkelmann

Dr. Andy reveals the dialogic ways he learns about the natural world

Dear Friends,

For years, I’ve been telling my writing students the story of the conversations that took place when I first met Ulrich Winkelmann.

Ulrich’s family moved to Washington DC from Germany when Ulrich and I were in the third grade. He joined our class not knowing a word of English, so I decided to get to know him better.

My mom taught me to seek out people who felt awkward, excluded, or disconnected from the group, and then, as we would say decades later on Facebook, to befriend them. As my mom was sometimes awkward and excluded herself, she always appreciated when people first broke the ice that encased her and that seems to encase many devoted introverts.

Luckily, I knew some German. At the Washington Waldorf school, for the first few grades, all of us were taught some Latin, some French, and some German. Our principal, Carl Hoffman, spoke several languages, easily shifting from among the three that I just mentioned, but he also sometimes talked to us in Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. Or so he told us.  

Wanting to get to know Ulrich, and wanting to expand my vocabulary, I would lead Ulrich around the playground, asking him what was what. “Ulrich, was ist das? “Das ist ein Baum.” That is a tree. “Ulrich, was ist das?” “Das ist ein Lehrer.” That is a teacher. One of my favorite words that I learned that day was “Spielplatz.” That is a playground.

This gray-bearded writing teacher uses this charming and ancient anecdote to remind my students that they know myriad verbs, the mitochondria of their sentences. They should not limit themselves to only the verbs I knew in German in third grade. They should challenge themselves to assert the meaning, the function, the purpose and the action of the nouns in their sentences, rather than insisting, as I did with Ulrich, merely that things exist. “To be” verbs can enervate a promising sentence.

This week I installed the Chat GPT application on my phone, and I’ve been reliving my memories with Ulrich. Today the gaps in my education are not German nouns, but instead are found in the natural world.

For many years I would call my naturalist friend Roy and ask him to identify the bird I was looking at from my synchronous description of it. Roy eventually grew tired of this, and sent me links to bird guides and, eventually, to online bird databases.

Now if I can snap a photo of the bird in question, Chat GPT will identify the bird for me and tell me all about it. This is also true with the trees, shrubs, and flowers that I pass by every day on my ambitious walks. Yesterday I got help identifying Silver Birch trees (Betula pendula), with their white and papery bark with dark and diamond-shaped fissures, and Crape Myrtle trees (Lagerstroemia indica) with their smooth, mottled bark and clusters of white flowers.

Some readers of this newsletter already know these trees and many others on sight, but many such naturalists grew up in California surrounded by California flora. My mentor naturalists stayed back east when I moved west, and I have not taken any recent UC Davis classes with the ebullient Laci Gerhart (in Evolution and Ecology) or with Gary Snyder (the last living Beat poet, he can be found in your American literature textbooks).

I’ve been asking mentors questions primarily about texts for the last 50 years. Now I have a portable friend who can teach me about nature, as well as culture. Yesterday I was joking with a friend that if I keep this up, in six months, people will mistake me for Charles Darwin, and not only because of my long gray beard.

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I hope you can join us some evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. The jollity and the misters will be on high. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, "Good times and crazy friends make the best memories." 

In addition to topics raised above, my most recent pub quiz featured questions on restaurants, chatbots, comprehensive partnerships, usurping brothers, great structures, nets, public schools, the difference between having character and being a character, artists, European countries, John Travolta, literary characters who are not Tarzan, wrestlers, Israel, funeral games, stables, respectful ghosts, liminal spaces, volcanos, country life, isotopes, memoirs, types of love, mammals, remittances, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to my new silver-tiered supporter, Sophie. Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also now sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. So please join. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter Q, what restaurant chain uses the commercial slogan “Mmmmm... Toasty!”? 

2. Internet Culture. At 1,441 employees, what well-known company employs more people than any other entity in Emeryville, California? 

3. Newspaper Headlines. First name Emmanuel, the French President recently called for early legislative elections. What is the last name of the President of France?