60 years ago

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Betty and I were married.

We met in a genetics class.

The event was the first meeting of the lab component of an upper level undergraduate course in genetics that I was taking as part of my graduate minor. As students arrived, they were told to pair up as lab partners. The even number of students in the room when I arrived had already formed pairs. For a brief period, I was the only student without a lab partner. A few minutes later, Betty Ellis arrived and we became lab partners. Coffee after class transitioned into study dates which evolved into a state in which we were considering marriage.

Betty obtained her B.S. degree before I received my Ph.D. She graduated in January 1963 and accepted a research assistant position at Southern Research Institute in Birmingham. After Betty began working in Birmingham, I learned that my application for a National Science Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Mississippi Medical School in Jackson, MS had been approved. We needed to reach a decision about whether or not we were staying together. The wedding was in Birmingham the last day of August 1963.

The day after the marriage, we drove to Jackson MS in the 1958 black Chevrolet Impala convertible I had won in a poker game. Cousins Barry & Brent attached the Just Married Sign and tied the tin cans to the bumper.

Betty’s sudden and unexpected death occurred in March 2019. Sudden perforations of her intestine sent her into septic shock and her body was not able to cope.

I am grateful that Betty did not have a long sustained illness with lots of pain and that her death was relatively quick allowing her to avoid her nightmare of spending years in a nursing home unable to attend to her own functions and with loss of cognitive functions.

I will spend today remembering the almost 56 years we spent together and working to complete a book containing images of the family gatherings that were so important to her and that added immense amounts of joy to her life.

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David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.