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The Joy of Roy Lukes

Roy Lukes, the dean of Door County’s nature-lovers, stopped by the Pulse office yesterday afternoon.

His regular column, Door to Nature, is one of the most popular additions we’ve made to the pages of the Pulse. The man is a bottomless well of knowledge about all manor of Door County animal and plant life and their histories, but more impressive than his knowledge is his unbridled enthusiasm for discovery even at age 80, when he has already forgotten more about the area’s ecology than the rest of us could ever hope to know (well, that might not be true, because when you talk to Roy, it doesn’t seem like he has actually forgotten anything).

In his casual pit-stop on his way home from a Northern Door foray to check out some walking ferns (I don’t know what they are, but I’m sure he’ll put them in print soon), he spoke excitedly about snake varieties, rare ferns I could never distinguish, and photography.

As he left the office in awe, I was inspired to see someone with such a passion for a subject that he already knows better than most everybody else.