An Ode to a Limnologist
--By EEB Poet-laureate Jim Cotner
Poems
Sterner Leaves the Chair
---By Jim Cotner
Bob, Bob the department head
Organized us all, but for all the trouble, he wished he were dead
He spoke for us all when he went to the dean
And none of us felt he was particularly mean
His entire tenure passed by so fast
But time is relative and what seemed short to us
To Bob seemed to last and last and last
Ok you all, to the Sterner man, stoichiometry rules
He kept the Cs and Ns and Ps ratioing by hiring jewels
in his lab and focusing every spare second on his “majestic” book
Which, last I looked, was riding high on the NY Times list of which everyone par-took.
We love what he did, and we thank him now,
Now back to just being a professor, which doesn’t rhyme with cow.
What could be more redundant than a retiring Paleoecologist?
--by Jim Cotner
There once was an ecologist named Ed,
The students all loved what he said.
He wore clothes of yore, which we all adore,
As he lectures of spore, pollen and times from ‘before’.
His town is St. Paul,
And his state Minnesota,
But the area he studies includes the Dakotas
And of course, Indonesia, which I know not an iota.
And over the years, the work he has done,
Has provided more than his quota
Of knowledge that can’t be undone.
To do his work on the ecology of plants,
He’s done his best to acquire the grants,
So he can traipse through the forest in long pants
In the hope of avoiding the ants.
It is said, that the departure of Ed,
Will be met with dread,
Despite his unrestrained editor’s pen
Renown for coloring text pages red.
But when it’s all said and done,
What we’ll miss most of Minnesota’s favorite son,
Is not his fastidious tie,
But just the fact that he’s such a great guy.
The boy from Pitt
---a limerick by J. Cotner
There once was a boy from Pitt
Whose only desire was to sit
In front of a titrator
Doing DOs with Winklers
Hoping that someday there’d be a kit
He decided his fate was in lakes
Cuz he knew just what it takes
To lower the meters
While slapping the skeeters
And keeping from falling in wakes.
So he started his journey in Bama
With Mexico’s Gulf as his panorama
He learned all he could
Of sulfur that he would
Before he came to St. Paul in his jamas.
Once he got here it was clear
The microbes he held dear
Controlled the fate of our nation
Those packages of respiration
If not in our lakes, then in our beer.
And now that his time here is done
We know that he’ll remember the fun
Of all the work that he did
Not to mention his kid
Isaac, his favorite son.
Frank Barnwell
This is the tale of Frankie Barnwell
A story of which I’m compelled to tell
For if I don’t he will dwell in his shell
For a spell, with little to communicate, unlike a golgi cell.
His roots were in Tennessee,
The Volunteer State, as it be,
Home of orange-checkered football
Played in the fall
And future home of his brother in law.
He did his graduate work in the Windy City
A big urban town, where he became so witty
That when he left, Mayor Daly,
Overcome with pity for the academic subcommittee
That let him get away
Declared “no more corruption!”*
At least for today.
Here in EEB, he’s given us much,
For thirty ought plus years, our lives have been touched.
He gave us a building, some crabs and a head.
He gave us his wit, some students well-fed
With his knowledge of organisms and marine life that he spread.
We’ll miss ol’ Frankie the Barnacle and his sweet crab that fiddles,
His teachings of things zoological and his humor that riddles.
Without the bloke from Tennessee, I can guarantee,
The fourth floor and department, will be drab
To an intolerable degree.
An ode to a brewery
James Cotner
If you’re looking for a brewer of barley, hops and yeast
Of ales that are known from west to east
for their burly flavors that are an absolute feast
Then surely you need to look no further than Surly
Right here in the Twin Citles.
For those who are cynics
They have a beer for you
It’s flavor is a mimic
for a belgian ale
iand t’s flavor a tastebud clinic
it’s name appropriately is: Cynic.
My favorite by far is the one stuffed with hops
Just hearing its name, Furious, makes my heart stop.
For Furious is meant for those who are serious about beer;
And those a bit curious, perhaps
but drinkers of Bud be warned
the flavor may be injurious to your fragile, unadorned senses.
So off to the Pig with my pal named Dean
Who’s the only one I know, whose taste in beer
Is as deliciously obscene
As the man standing before you.
Whose palate is dry, and will have to rely.
On someone other than himself to buy.
