Summer in Skamania meant going for walks with Jerry. If I twisted his arm a little, we could get him away from the computer and out into the fresh air. We found a surprising number of places without too much gradient which Jerry and his ski poles would tackle. Some summers his range was better than others – last summer it was actually pretty good - and we explored lapsed orchards (St Cloud), ghost towns (Fort Cascades) and former farms (Sams Walker).

Forever the mathematician, Jerry always knew exactly how far he had walked or how fast he was moving. Everything was measured in tenths, or tenths of tenths of a mile.

I never minded when he told me the same story or the same joke for the third or fourth – or tenth - time. Actually this forgetfulness worked to my advantage, since each summer we could go back to some of the same places, and Jerry was able to claim he had never been there before.

And we’d talk – and talk. Jerry would patiently explain Hadron colliders and big bangs to me for the umpteenth time, and I’d repay him with local history and human geography lessons. If I were Jerry, I’d be able to calculate how many hours 25 summers of Skamania walks would add up to. It would be sizable chunk of time, but it was time well spent.