Jeff Bernstein – BIO

Nicki introduced Pam Rogow in ’74, and Pam intro’d Herb Rosenthal, initiating work on the Singapore Science Center project. Trips to Singapore enabled side trips to Japan, Bali, and Sri Lanka. Anyone for a hand-forged betel-nut shear? How about a few dozen Balinese mask-dance masks? They’re on the opposite wall just now, staring blankly at this screen. Enjoyed a host of other creative projects with Pam and others then — People’s Almanac entries, scaled-up Tesla coils, resonant spaces music, ultra-light structures – – a reprise of E.A.T.L.A.

Married Pam, January ’81. Doug born, August 4th ’81. Lots of fun with Doug’s pals, who more or less swarmed through the house. All delicate works of art and science lived at the design studio, where they were a bit safer. Walt Disney once said “That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up.” Late ’87 saw us separate, then later divorce.

October 17 ’87 calendar note “meet Jean Stevens.” What kind of nut carries a reminder to meet their life’s love? Went to install Chips & Changes at Kalamazoo Public Museum. Jean Stevens, the Museum’s exhibits curator, had drawn the floorplan. She strides up to Al, Rogow + Bernstein’s tech wizard “Are you the big cheese?” Al: “He’s over there.” She was stunning. Perennially magnifique. Clearly, a memorable installation in the works. Noah Roselander, the Museum’s tech-meister, is still a great friend and ski buddy — fearless.

Fran said, years back, if you enjoy traveling with someone, you’re bonded. Certainly true with Rik Kumler, unshakeable friends till AIDS took him in ’89. July ’88, with Jean on Crete hiked down Samaria Gorge, caught the ferry to Loutro, feasted our eyes on Minoan art at Knossos, and feasted day after day on sumptuous Greek cuisine. Then, back home, we danced and rode horses and walked miles of Michigan’s white sandy beaches. A surfeit of art in Florence, Venice, and Rome in ’89. Museum pros to the core, we learned of a crypt below the floor of one of the Medici Chapels at the Basilica of San Lorenzo where a visitor could, for an extra fee, view charcoal cartoons drawn by Michelangelo on the plaster walls. Musty down there. Bare bulb. We wondered how we’d get back out. Since then, art, nature, and diving have drawn us throughout the US and across the globe, often with Doug. The best education.

Married Jean September 26th ’93, with family and wide community of Kalamazoo friends. Doug began joining our group travels. The circle grew.

When Doug was little, we biked around La Brea Tar Pits, just blocks from home; fishing off Santa Monica pier; sport fishing from boats off Catalina, and riding in Michigan. Later, travels with Doug got spicier. For his 13th birthday, we stayed at the Rain Forest Aerial Tram construction site, living in a cabin on stilts (to keep out Fer de Lance and other deadly critters) in the rain forest and riding the “web,” a 30” square steel perch with handrail suspended from a radio-controlled trolley that rolled along a taut stainless steel cable as high as 12 stories off the ground, above the forest canopy. Offsite, we took hot mud baths at Mt. Arenal volcano, went shrimping in the Gulf of Nicoya and galloped along its shore.

At 15, Doug joined our group trip to Nepal, where we circumambulated Anapurna. At 16, we slogged the Inca Trail’s high mist and cold mud (my second time) to Machu Picchu with Kalamazoo friends. At 17, we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, partly to gain distance from al-Qaeda and other terrorists who had bombed US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam a couple days earlier. Jean’s Serengeti animal drawings breathe. At 19, Doug passed his open water certification in Belize. Then, we lost our boat doing a night underwater navigation training with Glen Eiley, an inspiring friend and dive instructor. Glen, of course, found the boat, floating placidly off Mosquito Caye beneath a pitch-black starry sky. In July, ’01, we traveled Tibet’s high country with adventure buddies and China expertsTom Kostrzewa and his son, Ben, and several others. Visited an orphanage and school for blind kids in Lhasa, seeing first-hand their plight. Tom had us bring bundles of toys and food; taught juggling. We connected.

Many travels and much top training later, Doug’s an E.R. doc, unflappably calm, positive, even funny, no matter what (and he’s seen it all). He and his lovely, brilliant wife Becca Crootof are raising granddaughters Tali and Petra. Really, Becca is a wunderkind, a Yale Law School grad and second person to earn a PhD in Law at Yale, then serve two clerkships for two different judges in the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals; now a law professor at University of Richmond. Easy-going? Yup! Charming? For sure. A leader in her generation? Definitely.

Nephew Alex was all set to join the ’01 Tibet trip. Somehow, it inspired him to go to Japan, instead. He met and married Akemi there. Jean and I met her parents there, and have enjoyed feeling part of a wider family. Their daughter, Alice, is yet another grandkid. Treasures, all three. Gradually, ever wider explorations, skills, and fun.

Back to that ’01 Tibet trip. Our first day in Lhasa, we walked to Jokhang Temple. There, amidst ecstatic pilgrims, an attractive, middle-aged woman emerged from the throng, then thrust a fine mala into my left hand. A mala is a string of 108 meditation beads. Not realizing this was a pilgrim’s offering, it felt only fair to thrust a wad of yuan back. She adamantly signed “No, no, it’s a gift.” A tall, handsome man in a broad-brimmed hat about her age stood behind her. He signed to take the mala, to hold it in one hand. Then they pronounced the six sacred syllables “Om Mani Padme Hum.” Upon looking up, after glancing at this sudden gift, they had vanished into the crowd. Meditating that mala began then. It’s prompted more trips to Tibet, and wider travels there, to remote and sacred sites. Slowly, the woman and man who gifted that mala are becoming known.