A Remembrance of Loren Eiseley

I first read Loren Eiseley almost on a dare. An Esquire magazine article in 1968 stated that he was perhaps "the best prose writer in America today." I wondered how that could be. A scientist who writes beautiful, poetic prose? I had to read him.


After I did I became a lifelong fan. I was a young high school teacher at the time. I so loved Eiseley's writings I tried teaching them to my English students. Surprisingly, they enjoyed him so much they asked me to see if I could get him to come to our class.

For a while I resisted, not believing that our idol might ever come to earth. Through a very strange happenstance, however, described in this story, he agreed to come and meet the class. My friendship with him began that day and my life has never been the same since.
With Loren Eiseley's encouragement, and support, I quit high school teaching, entered the graduate program in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, and wound up studying wild baboons in Kenya, East Africa.
More importantly, I had the once-in-a-lifetime blissful experience of being
graced by knowing the kind, brilliant, and fascinating Loren Eiseley.
I hope this story introduces you to the inspirational writing of one of America's best nature writers and personal essayists, Loren Eiseley.

This is a 7500-word (about 25 pages) memoir of how a young man's life was changed because he dared to reach out to one of his heroes and make contact with him.