November 8, 2007
Bob Garot
I came to know Mel as a sophomore through his mental
illness course in the mid-80's, and stayed with him,
or he with me, through and beyond the dissertation.
Thank you Mel, you changed me. You gave me something
I wasn't sure I was looking for, and am not sure I can
express. Perhaps I can find it again in something you
wrote. You'll always be with me; I've thought of your
words often. And I've thought of your manner, your
presence. Weren't you ever nervous or uptight? Not
that I could see. What was your secret?
Over tea in the North Campus dining center, Mel would
buy those absurdly large muffins, but he could never
finish them, so he would offer the rest to the person
he was sitting with, or the squirrels. On one such
afternoon, I think in my second year of grad. school,
I confided my anxieties about not knowing what I could
do with ethnomethodology. Without missing a beat
(perhaps he had heard this question before), I think
he quoted Heidegger when he told me to "Ask not what
you can do with philosophy, but what philosophy can do
with you." So in the answer was another question, and
perhaps this is part of what made him so perfect for
academia, such a perfect teacher: maddeningly
slippery yet irresistible. You could never quite pin
Mel down, but you wouldn't want to. More than
anything, he was someone to appreciate. I could
listen to Mel for hours--his voice had a melody. I
miss him very much.