He stood alone, back-lighted in front of the wide double doors of the ballroom, examining the members of the American Society of Parasitologists gathered at the university for their annual meeting. Possibly Boulder, Colorado, I can't remember. Average height, he was dressed in a light suit, his shirt had a western type string around his neck instead of a tie and one leg of his trousers hung up on the top of a cowboy boot. He carried the meeting's program like everyone else.

As he sauntered into the huge room, the chandeliers lit up his face, gray hair, down swooping mustache and mutton chop beard, making him different amongst the crowd of academicians. Friends recognized him and moved toward him to shake his hand.

I had heard he had an opening in his department and since the babies kept coming, I needed more money. I approached him and he said, "Come see me in New Jersey." He started me off on my management career that would last thirty years.

Frans was twenty years older than me. Actually, he still is. Some things don't change. We developed a friendly relationship and he taught me some things and allowed me to teach myself a lot of things. He met and later married a charming thirty something year old woman. We three sat at a tropical medicine lecture at an institute in New York City before he popped the question to his soon to be third wife. He commented that, "I change wives every twenty years."

Frans was a pathologist, microbiologist, parasitologist, an internationally recognized expert in Chagas Disease and chaired an international symposium on the subject, published many papers in various scientific journals, had an enormous collection of scientific papers but remained a delightful person anyway.

One of the things Frans taught me was the martini lunch. We would go to the "Ten Two" restaurant known for their very friendly, scantily clad young waitresses, or another restaurant known for their two, as Frans put it, "Colossal" waitresses. Big boned beauties with broad smiles and Ruben-esque features.

While in conversation at the table sipping a martini, he'd engage in rearranging his tableware, salt, pepper, napkin, sugar etc. like they were chess pieces as he spoke. His subject matter was as eclectic as his numerous interests and his vocabulary was amazing.

Frans retired in a few years and went with his wife to St. Paul Minnesota where she worked for 3M Company. He became a volunteer at the local museum identifying bones from archeological digs. A brilliant mind never rests.

When my company's research moved to California in 1992, I stopped to see Frans and Anna on my drive to the west coast and stayed with them in their lovely home for a few nights. He had wall to wall shelves of recorded music he loved and had taught himself several new languages.

In the fall of 2006, driving from New Jersey pulling my RV to Salt Lake City to attend another scientific meeting, I stopped to visit numerous people on the way and how could I not stop to see my favorite scientist. My old boss.

Anna took me to see him, locked away on the fourth floor, the dementia floor, of an old person's care facility in St. Paul. When we emerged from the elevator his face lit up and smiled an "Oh, thank you," smile. When Anna told him who I was, he recognized me.

We all went for a walk outside and then along the inside corridors of the second floor. He was lucid most of the time but would slip into delusion on occasion. When he became tired, we said our goodbyes.

Frans is still one hell of a guy.