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My first personal contact with Dr. Edmund C. Jaeger was on a Monday morning in September of 1941. I enrolled in a class he was teaching at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College.) The class was, "The Southwest Deserts." Our textbook was his own The California Deserts, first published in 1933. My father's family, however, had known the Jaeger family as early as 1913 when one of Dr. Jaeger's sisters gave my father's sister piano lessons in my aunt's home in Riverside. Through the years, my family kept well aware of the Jaeger family, paying close attention to any newspaper announcements that appeared in the Daily Press from time to time. In 1939 my older sister enrolled in Dr. Jaeger's botany class, so it was only natural that I would take advantage of Dr. Jaeger and his outstanding teaching qualifications. And a teacher's teacher he was, with many of his students entering the educational and professional fields. My first field trip with Dr. Jaeger, (he was Mr. Jaeger then) was on November 5, 1941. On that afternoon after school, he invited me and a couple of classmates on an educational ride out to the Cajon Pass to study the geology of the area, and also any plant and animal life we might discover along the way. A light snack, cooked - as always - over his campfire, ended the day and we returned to school after dark. I might explain - most of Dr. Jaeger’s meals were light snacks ( he not being aware of the voracious appetites of teenagers!) This was just one month before the start of World War II, but I could still finish out the school year before dropping out for war work. Still keeping track of the Jaeger family, an announcement in the paper mentioned that Dr. Jaeger was giving a lecture at the Riverside Museum. I attended this and several following lectures in the series. Dr. Jaeger noticed that I was hanging around and was going to be a permanent fixture, so he invited me to come out on the next Palaver. This was in the spring of 1965 - Palaver #20. After attending my first Palaver, it seemed like a good idea, so I got into the Palaver habit and have been with the organization ever since! |
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