Some reminiscences

I knew Josh for at least 40 years, first as a colleague and friend. Not an intimate friend, but someone with whom I met regularly for breakfast, where he would casually prick whatever pretensions I had on offer that day, He loved to poke fun at my suburban life style, characterizing me as someone who was afraid to cross the Hudson river at night.  He came to our house once for Thanksgiving—surveying the chaos of family, friends and dog like an anthropologist in Papua—and leaving an indelible impression on my family.  He visited my daughter in Mexico City, and my Francophone granddaughter, who was then 6, and a little Lolita, remembers tto this day the visit of “le gentilhomme charmante barbué”. He was one of those rare individuals whose wit truly deserved the adjective “mordent”.

That Josh was a complex man goes without saying—his range of interests, like his circle of close friends, was extraordinarily large and unexpected—and when we would bump into each other at some odd place like the Film Forum he would give me a quizzical look as if to say,” what the hell are you doing here.”  He never quite convinced me to go to the Pima Bausch dance recitals—I am an old NYCB fan—but when she died, I was filled with regret that I had not taken his advice.

One of the things that drew us together was the fact that Josh shared with me the growing pains of the CUNY doctoral Program. It was the two of us that began the Neuroscience course that is now more than 30 years old, and worked together to manage the academic rivalries at Hunter and City to make our Training Grant work. He was always impatient with the absurdities of the academic administration and had only one goal—to be the best teacher and researcher he could be. And he was a phenomenal teacher. I have a distinct memory of his staggering into a Neuroscience lecture at City College at 9:00 AM; a bit sleepy and disheveled, with a paper cup of coffee in his hand-and then proceeding to deliver, for the next two hours, a carefully crafted, lucid and coherent lecture on the cerebellum—which made me feel that everything about this elusive structure had suddenly been made clear. That’s the image of Josh I will cherish. What I think I admired most about him was his passion for City College and his students. It was the passion of the nun for her vocation, of the dancer for her art. For me, that was his greatest gift to all of us.

Phil Zeigler

City and Hunter Colleges