Patty had the desk next to mine in the TA bullpen on the 6th floor of Vilas Hall at UW-Madison ComArts 1978-1981. She recruited me into the TA union (TAA), and she, I, and Richard Herskowitz were all comrades during the 1980 TAA strike. She approached the strike with typical energy and creativity. She got T-shirts printed up with a detourned version of a common UW design featuring Bucky Badger – but holding a TAA picket sign. Then she created these alternative lyrics to the college fight song "On Wisconsin" (etched forever in my memory): Off Wisconsin, Off Wisconsin Shut this factory down Tell old Irving Shain that he Can't push TA's around What the U calls education Really is a crime Strike now and Fight Fight Fight We'll win this time.
>From the get go, I considered her one of those rare individuals who are like an elemental force of nature. I shall share just one paradigmatic anecdote: There were 7 or 8 of us in that office, and there was one phone for the whole room near the door. Patty didn't spend much time at her desk, but the majority of the times that phone rang, it was someone trying to contact her. I began to feel a little bit like her secretary. One day as I was alone in the room, I answered the phone, and an accented voice said, "Isz Pat-ti there?" I replied, as I had so often before. "No, sorry.". "Oh, shhiit" said the voice. "Can I take a message?" I asked. "Yes, Tell her Werner Herzog called." "Uh... [beat] *The* Werner Herzog??" "Yes." "Uh [beat] I like your films." (Yeah, that was the best I could come up with in the moment.) "Thank You, Good bye." Later that day, I came back to the office after holding class, and Patty was there at her desk. in my most faux casual 'no big deal' tone, I said, "Oh, Patty, Werner Herzog called for you." And she replied just as casually without even looking up from what she was doing, "Oh yeah? What did he want?" At which point I think I uttered something like a scream... She was, in every way, irreplaceable. But her work, and her personal example to everyone who knew her, will not soon be forgotten. RIP, indeed, dear Patricia.
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