From Barry McInnes
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
I keep going around and around, as there are so many things about what to say about The Doc (Uwe) and Anita. Doc (and Anita) have been part of my life since 1973 and then my family since 1984, and will always be in our thoughts.
Uwe was the most intelligent and smartest, most widely travelled, and most interesting person I have met. It all started for me in 1973 when I got a summer job with the then Antarctic Division, with Bill Budd, writing a computer model for ice shelves. In the days of punch cards and paper tape. I remember the coffee that was made in the old building near the corner of Swanston and Grattan St. It was made every morning and was thick enough to put in Bill's 911. After a week or so of drinking this stuff, I started to work out why my stomach was in such bad condition !
I continued on to do Honours, a Masters and a PhD through the Meteorology Department, under the watchful eyes of Bill and Uwe. It still amazes me the ideas of Ice dynamics and Surging Glacier modelling that they put forward, and it was a privilege to work within the Meteorology Department, that was nestled close to the Geology building where I originally started at Melbourne University. So many great characters were contained within the Department and Antarctic Division.
Getting into computing was never originally in my plans, but I am still doing Systems work now, in 2009. There are so many lessons and stories about those years, it could fill a few volumes, just like my thesis.
The Doc was held in the same esteem in the Department as The Don in the cricket, and I came to realize that only very few people get the honour to be called The. I am not sure who first coined Uwe the Doc, but it was a grand title.
My major life change was to come in 1980 when The Doc bought me over to work on the Greenland project with him and Jo Fletcher at CIRES. In the subsequent trips back to complete the project I ended up getting married, travel to most of the states in North America, all due mainly to Doc. He planned a trip to University of Maine for me, when the leaves would be changing colour. Also to Seattle when there would be a few days without rain. There were many times when we went to the various house and apartments when Uwe and Anita would invite us to gatherings and get togethers to keep in touch. Always happy to discuss any topic especially the politics of the day, always with a wicked sense of humour and amazing perception. Always interesting stories, some about his time in Scotland, and the ship transport out to Oz, although he was not impressed with the TV series, the Dunera Boys. He told us how they did not know where the ship was going, so he calculated the position of the ship without any help.
After we moved back to Australia and enlarged the family to five, we moved back to the US in 1993, and met up again, with picnics at Frasier Meadows with the geese, the Radok's always the perfect hosts with lots of stories and lots of interest in what the kids were doing.
It always amazed me how the Doc had time to do all his projects, write papers, travel, and help so many people all over the world, all the time. He was a great driving force within a small frame.
There are so many stories to share, like his remote volume control for the TV which consisted of a piece of wire on the volume knob, which he rotated with a short pole while sitting on the couch. He got a kick out of showing it to us. Like the time he cross country skied into CIRES after a snowstorm in Boulder when the town was pretty much shutdown.
Since the Radok's move back to "retirement" in Australia, we kept in touch via email which got harder to do as the Doc's eyesight got worse.
He was the major influence on my life and how my family came together, and I am sure untold numbers of others were influenced in the same positive fashion.
Uwe and Anita were my "US parents" when I married Carol in Steamboat Springs in 1984. Doc, you will be missed but never forgotten - thank you from Barry, Carol, Shannon, Lachlan and Brendan McInnes.
Thank you Doc.
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I'm glad someone else can testify to dad's remonte control invention - wonder why it never took on?
ReplyDeleteI first met Doc in November 1977 when I came to work at the newly launched climate division of CIRES.(Of course I didn’t know Uwe Radok as “Doc” then; I only learned the salutation after Barry McInnes arrived at CIRES from Australia few years later.) In 1977 there weren’t too many women pursuing careers in atmospheric science, and Doc was committed to helping women in science get ahead. Maybe because he had three daughters himself, Doc had a special empathy for the gentle sex, and saw himself as a crusader for women in science. Over the years many women glaciologists and meteorologists were hired at CIRES under his tutelage.
ReplyDeleteSome reminisces:
After a paralyzing Thanksgiving blizzard that left Boulder all but shut down, I received an urgent call from Doc to come in to work to help prepare a paper he would be delivering at a conference. Doc himself had skied into work on vintage cross country equipment. (Incidentally - whenever Doc arrived at the office earlier than I did, he turned on the heat in my office – a thoughtful gesture!)
Doc was an amateur organist, and he had wangled a key to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church so he could practice organ there. I joined him once or twice to play duets, and I learned of a pet peeve of his: Bach played “too fast.” Indeed, there was scarcely a concert or recording when Bach was played at the correct speed.
I remember a time I had visited Doc and Anita for dinner at their home on Inca Parkway. Doc was watching television and using the latest form of remote control – a fishing pole! With this high-tech implement he would expertly reach over and turn down the volume whenever commercials came on.
After Doc’s eyes started giving him trouble, he would often use binoculars to help him see the slides presented at talks. More than one post-doc or graduate student was subject to the ordeal of being scrutinized through binoculars.
And lastly, I will ever be grateful to Doc for teaching me how to speak Australian: “It’s a lovely dye for the lydies and bybies.”
My heartfelt sympathy goes to Anita and all of Doc’s family. Wherever you are now, Doc, I am certain you are keeping the angels on their toes. And maybe you are even playing Bach with the Master himself, and finally, playing slowly enough.
Ellen Steiner
December 29, 2009