AC_1965_Web

16 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z B R O D Y BRODY ROBERT W. THEN AND NOW 4 B.S. Biology ROBERT W. BRODY, 1942–1996 Collected by Bernie Guyer, ‘65 B O B B R O D Y E N T E R E D Antioch in 1960, rooming in Mills/Caldwell with Steve Longstreth; he gradu- ated with a B.S. (Biology) in 1964. According to his widow, Lynn Slocum Brody of Pomona Park, Fla., Bob died of a massive heart attack in April 1996 (age ~54) “while sitting under his favorite tree.” I remember Bob best as an 18- year-old college freshman.He always had a wry sense of humor and could be intimidating. Many of us were bi- ology majors, and Bob had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do. Our classmate,Tom Newbury, recalls some of the co-op jobs that Brody held. “During the first year, he and I both worked at a Food and Drug Research Laboratory in Maspeth, Long Island. During a quarter of his second year, he worked at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Md. The laboratory now is part of the University of Maryland.” He graduated after four years and went on to Columbia University to do a Ph.D. in marine biology. I had gone off to Europe for an AEA year- abroad program but did see him some time after 1965 inWoods Hole, Mass.,where he was doing fieldwork. He was married then to his long-time girlfriend. Bob was close friends at Antioch with Steve Longstreth and was the best man at Steve’s wedding in 1964 (see photo).Other close friends were Steve Goldberg and Tom Newbury, who was also at the Longstreth wedding. Newbury has gone on to become an environmental scien- tist and now lives in Alaska. He saw Brody and Lynn on Martha’s Vinyard in 1975 and recounts: “Spielberg made the movie ‘Jaws’ on Martha’s Vineyard with a character who was much like Bob. The film was shot during summer 1974 and the script was typically finished the night be- fore it was shot. The characters in- clude a marine biologist and local police chief who plot the demise of the shark.When I (Tom) saw the film, the actor who played the marine- biologist’s role [Richard Dreyfuss] looked and acted exactly like Bob: confident authority on sharks, can- do attitude, stocky, short, black curly hair. The local police chief [played by Roy Scheider] was named: Brody.” After the death of Steve Straker in 2004, I began searching for all of our old dorm-mates. I found Brody through Google by spotting what seemed like a good lead: a coauthored publication on marine biology. I wrote to the prin- cipal author who connected me with people at the St. Johns River Water Management District near Jacksonville, Fla., where Bob had worked. They were very kind to share information about his death, sent a photo of Bob and connected me to his widow, Lynn Slocum Brody. Lonstreth and Brody, Aug. 20, 1964. Lynn shared the following memories of Bob through three let- ters we exchanged during our cor- respondence in 2004 (these are somewhat redacted for this article). “I (Lynn) met Bob when he was in- volved with putting together a small lab to continue his interest in cigua- tera fish poisoning while furthering