Dear Phil (aka #2Boy):

You were born on a Tuesday. You died in your sleep at home in your own bed on a Tuesday. My dear “little” big brother, only you could have achieved such poetic life-cycle symmetry. We could always count on “the World According to Phil” to give us lots of intriguing twists and turns punctuated by puzzling and often funny actions. A long-standing family joke about you was that “they broke the mold before they made you.” You are proof that it is far better to be a pioneering, brave, and imperfect original than a polished and a perfect imitation.

My loving tribute to you and your life is this list of what I’ll miss most about you. I will miss your:

+ warm and disarming smile and powerful hello and goodbye hugs

+ love of nature and everything about trees (viewing, planting, nurturing, climbing, hugging, woodworking)

+ passion for reading, learning, science, and teaching

+ wide-ranging intellect and clear vision for an improved world

+ agile mind and quick wit

+ empathy and compassion for others and ability to quickly craft a dialogue with anyone and everyone

+ never-ending devotion to maintaining family connections

+ commitment to rigorous exercise and physical fitness

+ ability to eat anything and everything and not show it

+ legendary frugality

+ competitive spirit and mental toughness

+ unique, ingenious, and resourceful ways of getting the job done (known in the family as KOM: Kreitner’s Own Method)

Thank you for serving our Country as a U.S. Navy Officer. May you enjoy calm seas and amazing ports of call on your present journey.

I will carry you in my heart and memory for the rest of my life.

Love – Rube (aka Bob/Robin/#3 Boy

Phil and I had a deep relationship from 1972 through 1979. We lived together in Ann Arbor when I was in my impressionable early 20's and into my post-graduate years working at the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor. In 1976, we moved to Oregon where I landed a job and where Phil worked to complete his doctorate. Once situated, we explored the Great Pacific Northwest and planted ourselves lasting roots here. During what took a few years, I helped Phil complete his food coop survey research and painstakingly spent months typing his dissertation . . . on a WANG! Finally, his U-M SNR PhD made that worthwhile, though he used to say the initials LMT were the more important ones after his name.

So many memories and adventures during our years together! I visited Phil in Montana when he and Steve Ames spent the summer collecting demographic data from the members of the Northern Cheyenne reservation. In every tender and daily letter he sent me, Phil enclosed pressed wildflowers and fragrant sage. I still have all his correspondence, which fully filled each page in tiny careful cursive. 

Invested in staying connected with friends and family across the country,  we "couch-surfed" before we knew to call it that. There were holidays spent in Sardinia, the small town in upstate New York where Phil was raised, and family ties and memories were readily rekindled. There was a 1978 New Year's retreat in Peterborough, NH we helped organize to explore ideas of living collectively on shared land. My notes from that special gathering of our college classmates included Hillary, Suki, Kathy, Eileen, Debbie, Bruce, Mary, Phil and me with Jeffrey and Steven sharing their ideas remotely. 

The transportation mode Phil and I depended upon was the infamous 1963 (?) VW squareback which I dubbed Phil's "Green Machine." That damn car got us where we wanted to go without in-tact floorboards, working heat or defroster. To stay warm on winter slogs, I'd stuff myself into my sleeping bag while wielding an ice scraper across the inside of the windshield. Maybe - just maybe - Phil could see enough of the road to get us to our destination and safely home again. I feel lucky just to have lived to share that memory!

By 1979, I knew I wanted children and Phil did not. Though our romance ended, our fondness and friendship remained. To this day, my friends and family marvel at Phil, just as all of us still do. We readily conjure up his eloquent and long-winded political rants; his strange attire and indifference to seasons and frigid temperatures; his propensity to eat with a spoon while standing and to masticate indefinitely; an insatiable and indiscriminate appetite, which included shameless bites remaining on your plate once you declared yourself done; his complete commitment to working out every single day - did he eat to work out or work out to eat? - you know the answer!; a sustained quest to learn and teach; the lifetime drive to make positive change in the world; an appreciation for family and community; a love of music and dancing close; frugality in every form imaginable with the exception of the physical realm.

I knew Phil in tender, vulnerable, and loving ways and for that, I am hugely grateful. To this day, I remain shaped by our influential years together, applying some of what I experienced while leaving other lessons at the door of our shared past. Phil was unquestionably novel, unique, original. I can honestly declare there was simply no one else even remotely like him.