HOLLY NADLER
508-274-2329
Julian Robinson, 82, of Oak Bluffs, the wildlife photographer who died on Friday, Feb. 24, was one of those men with an air of subtle wisdom, and of silences filled with insights that he shared with you in his pictures.
Morgan Freeman would play him in the movie.
In the summer of ’96, a man with a dark mustache and a short, white mane of hair around an otherwise bald head, stopped by our house in East Chop and handed us a photograph. The picture revealed our two cats, Siamese Beebe and black-and-white Gizmo who, quite simply, from a decorator’s point of view, looked fabulous together with their combined neutral tones that brought out the best in all other materials and patterns, from the yellow-and-blue florals of our living room sofa to the pewter-and-icy-jade hues of the vintage Rolls-Royce upon whose hood they reclined in this particular photograph, given us as a keepsake.
Under the picture, Julian had written a poem with silver ink, paying tribute to these two fat, self-satisfied cats on this splendid car. The Rolls belonged to Caleb Caldwell, a man we used to kid about loving the game of Monopoly when he bought up the Nashua House, then the restaurant Zapotec, then the Madison Inn, all on Kennebec avenue. The Rolls was part of a tiny fleet of autos that Caleb deployed as a boutique limo service. Caleb is an entrepreneur who would not surprise you in the least if he announced he was funding a new effort to rescue Lt. Percy Fawcett from the Amazon. Although many have tried and failed to find the explorer since he disappeared in 1925, Caleb’s team would surely locate him.
During that summer of ’96, Caleb was storing the Rolls in and out of our garage when Beebe and Gizmo stretched out on the hood in the sunshine. Julian Robinson chanced to ramble by and snap their picture.
Quite often it takes a person dying to realize he or she had a special relationship with all sorts of people in addition to oneself. Thus it was with Julian, whose bond with me revolved around the occasional ceremony of handing me a photograph, exquisitely matted, signed with his inimitable silver pen, and ready to frame. He had performed this unique gesture with everyone with whom he came into contact — if unique and everyone can be used in a single sentence. His pictures of wildlife — especially birds and, within that avian category, especially osprey and owls — were to Julian Robinson what apples were to Eve and Adam (before the bad part) and whoever “she” was who sold “seashells down by the seashore.”
I’m feeling a painful congestion in my chest as I write this. I never knew Julian apart from the times we discussed a baby snow owl here, an anomalous otter in Sunset Lake there, and shortly thereafter he had tracked me down to gift me with another matted picture. I now own four of them, each one duly framed. They used to hang in the office of my bookstore, and now I’ll need a small section of my apartment for a Julian Robinson memorial wall.
I know very little about this community figure other than that in his retirement — he’d long worked in Jersey City as a college administrator — he’d found this new professional niche, and he was very good at it, very patient, his heart fully engaged. He could wait hours for the appearance of a baby osprey from its nest, the breath of an angel causing a gust of wind to check its fall, summoning the first shaky flutter of the chick’s tiny wings. Then snap! Julian captured this miracle-of-a-micro-moment through his lens.
We are always humbled, shocked into stillness for a moment by the first news of someone’s passing. When I learned that Julian had died, I knew it would take a long time to recover and that, in fact, the sight of his photos on my own walls, or the sudden view of an osprey on the wing, will bring this lovely and loving man back to me and, with this reminder, a new startling sense of loss.
To Julian’s widow, Belmira (Mimi), and all of Julian’s friends and family, God speed.
Just a reminder, the Ham and Bean Supper to support Friends of the Oak Bluffs Council on Aging will take place Saturday, March 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the senior center.
Two exciting one-time-only classes from the Adult Education gang, in cooperation with the MV Museum, are both taking place at the high school on Thursday, March 15 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., both offered for $35: 1) Jewish Cooking with Lori Shallor and Ljuba Davis; 2) Detoxification For Body, Mind and Soul with Dr. Kristine Kopp, DC.
Claudia Bowser will hold her annual St. Patrick’s Day Solid Gold Bridge Tournament, with all four of her clubs, on Saturday, March 10 at the senior center. I know this because the other day as I strolled north on Upper Circuit, a woman with a leopard-print cap, dangling jade earrings, jade ring and jade bracelet, pulled up in her tan compact car and ordered me to get into the back seat. “You’re not going to abduct me, are you?” I asked as I slid into the automobile, the motor still running, ominously. It was Claudia and she told me about the tourney and that St. Pat’s Day was also, quite merrily, her birthday. Then she let me go.
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