M. Bartley Seigel

Late Michigan Tech alumnus Ronald Johnston Pearce (1929-2020) had a lifelong connection to the Soo Locks and the St. Marys River in Sault Ste. Marie, which began when he was just a child. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is honoring his legacy, expertise and impact on the region with the deployment of the R.J. Pearce, a tugboat being commissioned in Sault Ste. Marie this fall.

On September 13, 1987, in the city of Goiânia, Brazil, not far from the country’s capital, a small capsule of highly radioactive material was stolen from an abandoned hospital. Although the site, the Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia, required high security, its former owners had neglected the place and squatters and looters had frequented it, intermittently, over the years.

Tucked alongside a 2011 interview in a magazine for American expats in Italy is a photograph of Marina Jarre standing on a beach at dusk. Her silvery hair blends in with the cold, unfocused sky, which is itself reflected in a steely sea. I wonder if the photo is the one she describes in her book, on the Baltic coast after a long drive with her son Pietro: “I walked as an old woman toward the water’s edge, where harmless, milky little waves broke.