By Mary Lu Arpaia

My association with Gordon goes back nearly 35 years to some of the very earliest days as a new graduate student here in Davis.  Sometimes the best things that happen to you are unplanned.  That is how I first met Gordon.  I had been accepted into graduate school in the Pomology Department but did not have the grades to be offered an assistantship; instead I was offered work study.  I went to the work study office and found a job posting in the Pomology Department to work in postharvest.  Now, I had planned to do something in the field, but needed a job to pay the bills.  And I wanted a job in the department that I had been accepted to as a graduate student.  That job was working for Gordon and that was...