I know we haven't met, but you have been keeping in contact with my mother and received my brothers letter, and Kateri's letter.  I am using her website because my yahoo account isn't wanting to attach the pictures.  If you could post my e-mail address instead of this one, I would appreciate it.  It is :  carolynlk@yahoo.com

I have been thinking very hard on what I wanted to contribute to the website.  I have included several pictures that I really like. (for your reference) In card2, is a picture of me and Larry this last December when I graduated college, pic.30002 is pretty typical of Larry, and the other two I thought, were VERY representative of Larry at our numerous family gatherings in which Larry would typically bring flowers (multi-color carnations) and we would entertain ourselves for hours by any means possible. (in the two pictures Kateri and Meri sit on the couch with Larry at my 21st birthday party reading horoscopes, hung-over from the night before when he took me out to the eastside of Milwaukee. The other is my brother Ethan swinging Victor while Lisa sits on the couch watching disaster, all the while Larry and my mom have a light and fluffy conversation on the side...)  The card20001 is a birthday card Larry gave to me for my 21st birthday. I was hoping it would show everyone what a great cartoonist he was.  (this was a tradition of Larry's to draw kooky pictures on all of the cards we gave each other)  In case the words don't come threw, it says:

"So if you're 21 now, why this juvenile card?  Good question, except that as you grow into splendid maturity (and beyond, yech!) remember the virtues of silliness and the limits of seriousness.  Take it from a crazed professor who wishes you a most glorious 21st birthday.  And who looks forward to watching, and sharing, as much of the rest of your life as the Goddess Fortuna will allow--all my love, Larry"

Thank you for displaying my brothers letter.  I really wanted him to write-in, but he didn't and didn't feel it was right any other way but anonymously.  I was hoping he would claim it himself.

I think about what you are doing, and I think it is very admirable.  It tears me to look at pictures and letters from Larry, but yet I love to see Larry threw other people's eyes.  You must be feeling an emotional bitter-sweet feeling.  Thank you for doing the website and bringing more of Larry to life, for me, and for others.

Paul- you are more than welcome to put anything I said above on your website.  I would really like to put some of the pictures on, and the silly card.  It is VERY typical of the relationship Larry had not only with me, but my whole family.  But I would really like you to put everything I write below on your website, as you see fit.

Best wishes to you......  Carolyn Leigh Keller

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I was asked what my favorite memory is of Larry.    This is a very hard decision......

Immediately, I think of my high school graduation.  I was only allowed four guests who had to sit in a hot, smelly gym for several hours while 350-plus names were called, droningly, one by one.  As my name was called, I looked up to see Larry standing high in the bleachers, above everyone, clapping with wild excitement and making who-knows-what kind of cat-call cheering, smiling ear-to-ear, chester cat-like.  He was proud of me. He gave me support.

And when I graduated college, as I nervously accepted my diploma, the college president said to me, "WOW you must have a big cheering section!" -- I  heard the same wild, excited clapping and  cat-call cheering.  All I could do is smile. He gave me strength.

Or maybe it is the memory of every cold, frosty winter for as long as I can remember, Larry helping (o-kay, doing, I'm a scrooge) the Christmas tree, laughing at all of the strange ornaments, and selectively picking and placing the absolute strangest to put on the tree for the holiday season.
He gave me cheer.

Or maybe when he taught me, patiently, how to grind (his car) ALX's transmission, by driving in circles, shifting from first-gear to fourth. (On-top of driving lessons) he showed me patience.

Or maybe when he and my mother (in my pre-teen years) decided in October, to folk-dance OUTSIDE IN THE DRIVEWAY with their Scandinavian music blasting (yes, blasting), the very DAY trick-or-treating was being held. Let's just say they scared all of the ghosts and goblins away (and let's just say my red face didn't match my costume).  He taught me how to be light-hearted and when you cannot do anything else, just laugh.

Or when I would wake up late-morning as a teenager (in my basement dungeon), with my hard-rock, big-hair, dark make-upped face, hating the world, and I would wake to beautiful concertos spilling from the out-of-tune piano. He gave me comfort.

But I really think it's not one specific time or place.  It's all the times we would meet, as a family, or individually, and we would talk, and we would laugh about school, about the discarded Keller-girls ex-boyfriends,  about Shakespeare, about hard -metal (music?), about family, friends and colleagues, about "Austin Powers" (yes--he watched it!), about traveling, ABOUT LIFE.  He showed me the world threw a colorful kaleidoscope, and I believe we, myself and my family (Andre, Meri, Ethan, Kateri, Victor, James, Christine, Lillian, Bill, Jim, Lisa, Ben, (prenatal) Ka'rynn, Ginger, Bahlu, Chumbley -he named the cat that) , showed him an interesting colorful world, too.
 

I would like to share a poem Larry gave to myself and Kateri, (it came with a beautiful, flat stone). 

"Lose yourself in these shapely patterns of frozen color.
 

Rearrange them in your mind to contemplate worlds of your own design when that other world outside yourself oppresses.
 

Remember that all outside can be within if you want, yours for the dance.
 

Power resides in the connections and the hunger.
 

Stay hungry for the world, for these colors-speckles and swirls, targets of desire or repose- of mysterious, nourishing, loss.

Dance deeply to this music of sleek gray with silver tinge, or circling crystalline white. 
 

Glide and spin endlessly to this polished stone, finding yourself in its patterns, its linked worlds, mine among them."

Larry is a part of me and my world.  And I know I was a part of his.  He broke my shell and has helped mold me.  I don't know if I have the a trait because of him, or he has the trait because of me.  I have absorbed his words, the colors of us are blended, our worlds are linked.  Larry is in my
mind and my soul.

No matter how long or short we, (friends, family, colleagues), knew Larry, he gave each one of us a gift--himself.  This is how I make my sorrow bearable.  I am very lucky to know Larry as long as I did.  He truly is a gift.  Thank you for all of the pictures and letters FROM EACH ONE OF YOU and for celebrating Larry.  You are sharing the gift of Larry.

I will meet Larry again, when I'm much older, and once again, we will share the gift of each other.  We will meet like old friends, like professors, like what we are--family.  And I think, because we still have a date from Christmas, we'll go to Chicago and he can once again, show me the beauty of
the world around us......

Crazyprofessorlarry, I will be looking for you and will have tons to tell you........

Carolyn Leigh

Carolyn Leigh Keller - Mukwanago, Wisconsin
carolynlk@yahoo.com