Alfred Little

Tracey Tokosch (Cain)

Debbie Hampton (Bailey)

Karen Leigh (Underwood)

Daryll Nutt

Danny Blubaugh

I was in pretty close contact with Louie all through our adult years up until his death, so I guess I probably knew him the best. On the hike that Daryll Nutt (now Heysham) describes above, we gave each other nicknames from American Indian lore. Lou was Loup Garou (the wolf), Daryll was Megusee (the eagle), and I was Manitoupeepagee (the Devil). Interestingly, when Lou went to Earlham College, he received the same nickname from his classmates, totally independently (I guess because of the similarity of Lou and Loup).

In my senior year I was undecided about college, and Lou convinced me to go to Earlham, which I did a year after graduation, and Lou and I were roomates my first year. Lou dropped out of college and worked for a year or two while on a Mennonite farm in Goshen, Indiana.  It was during that time that he hiked the Appalachian Trail. I started the trip with him, but due to a shoulder injury sustained on the hike (we began in winter, and we both were falling a lot on the ice), I had to drop out. Later, he was traveling through Bloomington, Indiana and bumped into a female classmate from Earlham, and the two became friends, then lovers, and lived together. That's how Lou came to settle in Bloomington. Lou worked for the University of Indiana as a gardener, bus driver, and later for the physical plant.  He was very active in the local labor union, and in his spare time he did geological research with one of the professors at the university.  Lou had a great love of geology, and though he was never formally trained, his knowledge was equal to at least a baccalaureate.

After that relationship broke up, he married briefly to a friend and became a step-father to six (I think) children. That marriage lasted a couple of years, then ended in divorce. I was living in Urbana, Illinois at the time, and I remember talking with Louie on the phone. He was pretty despondent about his divorce. So I told him about my friend Linda Bruce, who was also despondent at not having a partner, and I introduced them. Six months later they were married! Linda moved to Bloomington, and she and Lou bought an old farmstead in the country near Spencer, Indiana. With Linda, Lou became a father to Meara and Sean.

I continued to see Lou a number of times. While I was in Illinois, he and I met up for a two-week canoe trip through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, using Louie's canoe. Lou continued to go there numerous times in the ensuing years. After I moved to Utah, Lou and his family came through on their way to Yellowstone, and his and my family made the rest of the journey together. A few years later, Louie came through Utah again on his way to Arizona for a conference, and he and I journeyed together again (my father was living in Arizona). That was a year before his death, and he was making the rounds of visiting all his old friends. Perhaps he knew on some level that he did not have much time left?  The diagnosis of leukemia came about a year later, and it was only a few months after his diagnosis that he died.

Lou was a great friend, an avid hiker and outdoorsman. He was unconventional in every meaning of the term. Once during our senior year at Penncrest, at Louie's insistence we cut class and walked over to Tyler Arboretum to key out (identify) plants. When we returned, Louie was unabashed at telling our science teacher (whose class we had cut) what we had done. "Cut science to practice science" is what Louie wrote in his journal. Although extremely intelligent, with a class rank close to the top, he dropped out of college and became a laborer because he identified with the working class. His intellect did not keep still, though, as he studied geology intensely on his own, even doing research, and getting his name on at least one publication (http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/21/10/917.abstract). I met up with Lou one summer in Montana, when he was attending a geological field camp. I remember it snowing on the Fourth of July (it was in the mountains). We watched fireworks together in our winter coats! Louie was always studying and researching, while at the same time championing the cause of workers through his union activities. He was an independent thinker, a good chess player, a devoted friend, and a very good man. He was also the only person I have ever known who could mimic the sound of a tape player on extreme fast forward. It was hilarious!

Thomas Leiper

Over the past few decades there are only two things I remember about my activities during my senior year; working on my cars and spending hours yucking it up in the library with Louis and Alfred Little. I honestly do not remember attending any classes other than metal shop, or handling a scrap of homework, yet somehow I have a diploma. It's like that whole year was a distant dream, and I didn't even smoke pot. But my image of Louis is as fresh and indelible as that of some of my beautiful and intelligent female classmates that were so hopelessly beyond reach.

He had a wry sense of humor augmented by an extremely eclectic and arcane knowledge base. And yes, Danny, I remember the tape recorder, both fast forward and rewind. I seem to recall his father was a professional photographer and Louis inherited the gene in the form of an eye for the unusual. I still vividly recall a beautifully composed black and white photograph he showed me, of a dead horseshoe crab taken with a 4x6 Graflex camera at the beach during summer vacation.

I am not surprised to read of his direction in life, though the image I always imagined was that he would end up a brilliant researcher of some sort, definitely in a white lab coat, and in his own way I suppose he was. He just did it for passion rather than money, and I have no doubt he is in a good place despite his untimely exit from this one. Perhaps we'll all see him again on the 100th reunion, which I plan to attend.

On that note, my understanding is that many of us will need to make sure that our estate planning includes sufficient funds and legal provisions, as well as required permits, such as to enable the exhumation and transportation of our remains to the Town House on the appointed day and hour, so get cracking on that Will you have been putting off for years, Louie is waiting!

Sally Replogle

The memories written here really brought shape to the person Louis was--good job everyone. I remember seeing Louis around Penncrest. He was obviously a special person with special friends. (Funny, Thomas Leiper!)

Susan Byerly (Elko)

Thank you to those who wrote letting us know more about Louis. I know he has been gone quite a few years but even now I am glad to hear about and appreciate reading about him and the life he led.

One of Gary and my sons went to Earlham College about 6 years ago and during his 4 years there he remembers meeting Meara Bucklin in class. He talked to her because she was wearing a Tyler Arboretum tee shirt which he recognised as being a place he visited with us while visiting family in the Media area. And it stood out as well because our other sons name is Tyler. So Evan and Meara had the arboretum that in common, then figured out that her father went to highschool in Media,  and began to put two and two together, thus asking us whether we knew a Louis Bucklin.

I am sorry for his family and those who knew him for their loss.

Karen Bach (Albeck)