Patterson, Douglas
Mar 20th, 2011 by Charlotte Haug
Doug writes:
Gudmund Hernes? First met him at a party in Palo Alto hosted by Doug Owens and Sarah Cody in 2000. Wasn’t sure how to pronounce his last name.
We hit it off immediately, although in retrospect I suppose he might have just been taking pity on me. Regardless, my wife Dena (the smarter half of the marriage and my connection to Stanford) and I swiftly became good friends with Charlotte and Gudmund.
I recall one weekend that they spent with us in San Francisco. It was Sunday, after breakfast. Charlotte and I cleared the table and did the dishes while Dena and Gudmund discussed a paper that he was about to publish. I (feebly) joked with him about someone of his stature allowing a young upstart to critique his work.
“What kind of a man are you, anyway?” I asked.
“I’m a learner.” was his reply.
Touché, Gudmund.
Of course, that’s not all he is. He’s an intellectual who wears his brilliance lightly. A kind, thoughtful, and generous man with a quick (but gentle) wit. And one of those rare individuals who–whether he knows it or not–makes all of us step up our game just a little when we’re around him.
Who is Gudmund Hernes? He’s a dear, dear friend.
But I’m still not sure how to pronounce his last name.
“Ignition Sequence Starts”
- This NASA idiom is as good an intro to Doug as any. Because he has an imagination which sets you off in a new direction. For example, he coined the motto for SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art): “Open for Interpretation”. Not only did I buy the SFMOMA t-shirt with this print – it gave me the topic for at keynote address at the University in Agder, Norway. Talking to Doug sets your thinking off in a new direction.
- My main problem is that he is a fisherman, swinging his rod to land self-made flies at the right spot to make a trout unable to resist the hook.
- Except I really think he is pulling my leg. He tells me trout is extremely particular about what they eat – choosing a diet which perfectly matches the local and temporal insect fauna. And they are not to be fooled.
The catch (no pun intended) is that Doug claims that when he ha caught a trout, he throws it back into the river. In this way his proficiency at fishing can never be verified. As a matter of fact, I believe he is pulling my leg, passing the time in a far-away local bar, over a Sauvignon Blanc, trading tall stories with the natives and preparing the next pulling of my leg.
But I forgive him, for when we meet, the ignition sequence starts.