Peter Waring

Michael is second from the left.

Of all my boyhood friends, Mike, you stand out as a beacon of Adventure. From grade school days when you all lived off Hubbard Street and we used to wander across neighbor's back yards.

Of course, among the highlights was the 1,000 mile/24 day bike trip with Nick McGray and David Vanderlip. That trip would never have happened if it weren't for Mike's daring initiative, supported by the confidence of my dad, Dana, that we could actually pull it off without killing ourselves. My mom Dorothy's solution was to give me a pack of self-addressed postcards and make me promise to drop one in a mailbox every day.

We almost didn't make it thru the first night, as I recall. We had biked 66 long miles on our old three speed Raleigh (or equiv) bikes laden with 40 pounds or so of camping gear.

We stayed at a Youth Hostel near the CT River in MA and to pass the evening, we played cards, Poker, I believe. At some point, I came to the conclusion that Mike was cheating, and in one of my rare moments of over anger and physicality, I pushed Mike up against the wall and threatened to punch him. He laughed it off with his characteristically deep voiced laugh,

claiming that he was just trying to get my goat (which he certainly did).

Nevertheless, the four of us survived to see Lake Champlain, camp out with billions of Black flies in a pasture in Waitsfield, VT, touch the corner of York, ME and stop in to visit your Grandparents in Boaton.  They lived in what had once been the carriage house of the Saltonstall family estate. The four pedaling Musketeers swam in the estate pool (with permission?) and proceeded to play a rowdy game of hide and seek or Tag among the many hedges of the grand garden (definitely without permission).We continued south taking the ferry from Woodshole to Martha's Vineyard where we delighted in exploring the various sites around the island.

Finally home victorious and a lot stronger physically and psychologically for the ordeal/adventure.

In retrospect, Mike's audacious bike tour did, in fact, give me great confidence in my own ability to fend for myself in new territory and solidified bicycles as a permanent part of my life, including biking to Princeton three years later to become a freshman, joining the Princeton bike team, going to Europe with my brothers and ordering a custom racing bike to be built for me in

Copenhagen which I rode alone from there to London (via the ferry to Dover).

Another adventure I recently retold to my new Swedish family (my youngest son Adrian is marrying a Swede) was driving to Cape Cod in search of evidence that the Vikings had landed there long before Columbus.  In particular, we searched for holes in rocks which had a rounded triangular shape characteristic of using a flat chisel to secure their boats.

I wasn't too surprised to learn later that Mike was a prof of anthropology at Rutgers, had done research in India, and then went undercover posing as an older undergrad in Rutgers dorms to document social patterns there.

Please know that my thoughts and my heart are very much with you now. You will continue to live large in my life.

Someone once said about my parents something that is true for you as well,

He "sure did think outside the Box."

Your biking Buddy,

Peter

Cynthia Conwell Cook

Dear Mike: 

Your Mom and mine were pregnant together.  For as long as I can remember, I wanted to earn your respect and admiration.  I recall an early birthday party (maybe age 5) when we played "break the bridge" and I knocked myself out against the bridge you were making with someone else.  You wouldn't allow the bridge to be broken, and I wouldn't stop trying! 

 

I also remember the bike trip you took with Peter, David, and Nicky, and how much I wanted to be part of that trip.  I couldn't understand then (and even now I find it hard to accept) that it would be unsuitable for a teenage girl like me to go off on a bike trip of several days with four guys!

 

We didn't stay in touch after high school (and writing those books for Mr. Linn), but I have followed your career from afar and read your books with great interest.  I love it that all of us who did so much math and physics in high school have ended up in people-oriented professions.  I can tell from your blog that you have had a productive and interesting life and have made many people happy.  May God bless and keep you.

 

Love, Cynthia Conwell Cook 

Nick McGray

In junior high and high school, you and I did a lot as pals in and around the Connecticut River meadows near our homes.  I remember walking our dogs, Josie and Minx, and long conversations with you.  You always had a book to read and a creative project that I could join you in discussing and doing.  We must have made twenty different designs of kites and model airplanes to fly in the meadows, as well as that big hot-air balloon you created with the same banana-doped tissue paper used for our model airplanes.  I was surprised it didn't burn up like the Hindenberg, but the large hole you dug in your yard kept the fire-box contained.  Slowly the balloon filled with hot air, and we took all sorts of data on temperature and lift-force by using some of your father's thermodynamic instruments.  

 

I was usually the follower and helper while you were the initiator of most non-sports activity.  We both seemed OK with that.  By high school my afternoons were filled with track and cross-country, and you were in more clubs, activities, and theater.  We still enjoyed skiing and sail boating with each other's families and occasional dinner at each other's homes.  Your mother made a great Indian meal, undoubtedly motivated by your dad's early life in India with his missionary parents.   

 

Mike, you may not think you had a mischievous sense of humor, but you did.  Once I expressed my envy of your one-dollar allowance when I only received twenty-five cents for mine. You said, "We can fix that," and proceeded to throw pennies into a nearby brook.  Taking advantage of my overdone sense of thrift, you knew I would wade into the brook and fish out the money much to your amusement.

 

On our seventh-grade Halloween we decided we were too mature to beg for candy, so we took eggs to throw at other kids and soap to do up the high school.  You soaped a window of one of your teachers and then convinced me to write a very bad word so it read correctly from the inside of my English teacher's classroom.  The next day my teacher, who I liked a lot, was furious and offered a twenty-five cent reward for information leading to the identity of the miscreant.  You threatened me with exposure for a month, and I really thought you would do it.  You never tried to blackmail me. You just kept threatening!  It's crazy how kids torment each other just for a good laugh. 

 

When I was sixteen, our thousand-mile bike trip through New England was a maturing event.  With Peter Waring and David Vanderlip, we all learned to work as a team, deal with differences, and meet emergencies like David's concussion in Rutland Vermont.  Learning to deal with empty time by playing games, reading, and planning the next day was also a lot of fun. Our five-day fifty-mile hike with Jack was another good time as we debated Jack's well reasoned Mormanism and read the liberal philosophy of Bertrand Russel after dinner on the trail.  You must also remember working with Barry Nielsen on your father's historical house refurbishing project.  Barry and I had a good time visiting you at U.C. Berkley  when you were studying Tamal in preparation for academic work in India.  Looking back as a retired high school teacher, I think we all were a pretty precocious bunch of kids.  Take care, and be good.

 

Nick

Keith Howells

Michael

You have much to feel proud of in your life. You have been a college professor, with the power to influence the thinking, morals and outlook of a whole generation of inquisitive students. You wrote a book which, although you don't like talking about it any more, garners nothing but five-start reviews on Amazon.com. You have raised an eclectic family with strong passions, high talents and a gentle spirit. And you have known a love more genuine, dedicated and caring than most will ever even glimpse. None of us can fully know the torments and injuries you're currently suffering from, but rest assured that you live on a beautiful planet with beautiful people. Maybe there's still something further for you to experience, to enjoy, to savor, to relish. We believe so, and we're all rooting for you.

Warm wishes,

Keith, Susan, Paul and Ian

Bonnie McCay

Dear Michael,

I remember a long time ago, when Anthropology was scattered around Rutgers, and you were an assistant professor at Rutgers College, on the College Avenue Campus, not far from “Old Queens,” and I was an assistant professor at Cook College.  We were the youngsters in anthropology, up against the likes of Yehudi Cohen, Helen Safa, Robin Fox.  Even so, I looked up to you.   I so admired the work you’d done in India—the message I retained was about how “high” culture might be appropriated, enacted, and reproduced by poor villagers-- and then later your ethnographic masterpiece, Coming of Age in New Jersey.  

Your retirement was a great loss to the Department, the graduate program, and to cultural anthropology.  I recall your ventures into serious bird-watching, and I expect, knowing you, that your “checklist” is very long and meticulously recorded.   God bless you, my friend.

Love,

Bonnie

Susan Cachel

 Before eating snails in Paris, 2007.

Michael's grandfather, Marston Moffatt, had been a missionary in India.  Michael said that this probably led to his professional interests in Indian culture and civilization.  Michael's grandparents were very proper and Victorian-like in their behavior.  Marston later became obsessed with reading all of the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  He had a complete collection of the first editions of these books, which would now be worth a fabulous amount of money.  Michael's grandmother, however, was not happy about this obsession.  Michael would frequently quote his grandmother as saying:  "When Marston was courting me, we used to read poetry together.  But now all he wants to do is read books by that horrible Mr. Burroughs."       

   Michael himself loved to read the Tarzan books, and especially loved the movie "Greystoke:  The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes," with Christopher Lambert in the lead role.  Michael wrote an article about the movie that incorporated many of the ways in which Tarzan had permeated American popular culture.  I do not know if he ever succeeded in having it published.   

   Susan Cachel

David L. VanDerlip

Hello Pam,

Thanks for contacting me and letting me know about Mike.  I still remember the great bike trip.  It was Mike's idea-I just went along for the ride and what a ride!  We didn't have helmets in those days and the fork on the old 'Raleigh' 3 speed collapsed and down I went, somewhere in Vermont.  The next thing I remember, I was lying on my back in the grass.  I had a bad concussion.  Mike may remember that and the trip to his grandparents in Boston and West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard.  You could never do this today and the only reason I got to do it was because Mike organized the whole thing.  We were also in band together.  Ask him if he remembers Mr. Dellert and how he occasionally lost his temper and broke his baton on the lectern. Please share with Mike and let him know I am thinking of him and wish him well.

David L. VanDerlip