Simpson story #2

               Maybe I sensed that I would evolve into a faux historian even back in graduate school.  But when I used to visit Dr. Simpson and do his typing and filing, back in 1983-84, I occasionally would drop names and get his reactions.  And they were always candid, especially after the two martinis he had for lunch.

               One day I dropped the name of the old dinosaur paleontologist, Ned Colbert.  [Edwin H. Colbert, 1905-2001]  I knew that they had overlapped at the American Museum for many years, and that everyone who had ever spoken about him had said he was a really sweet old guy.  I figured GGS would have some stock anecdote about a drinking binge together or something.

               Instead the ambient temperature in his library dropped about five degrees, and he snarled something at me, which I swear was no more than 5% different from: “That son of a bitch fucked me over back in 1937!”

               Needless to say, even as a smarty-pants graduate student I was momentarily at a loss for words.  I also tended to develop a stutter when talking to him.  “But D-d-d-doctor Simpson,” I said, “This is 1983.  That was like almost 50 years ago.”

               He growled angrily, “That means nothing to a paleontologist,”  then smiled.  I changed the subject.

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Léo Laporte properly set the fight between Colbert and Simpson in 1958, after Simpson had the tree fall on him in the Amazon. 

Laporte, L. (2000) George Gaylord Simpson: Paleontologist and Evolutionist.  New York: Columbia University Press.

John Ostrom (1928-2005) later told me that he had gone to Columbia to work with Simpson on mammals, but since Simpson was a huge celebrity academic and was never there, he moved over to Colbert instead, to do  birds and dinosaurs.

I did learn an important life lesson from that exchange, though.  Grudges are expensive to maintain and generally aren’t worth it.