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Summer 2004
 Fun in the Field
from the
Man on the Street
A new book brings back
the warm humor of
a beloved naturalist
By Don Parker
Illustrations by Bobby Sutton
Jerry Sullivan, a lifelong naturalist and lover of the wild realms of Chicago Wilderness, had a profound impact on conservation in this region. A gifted interpreter and author of the Chicago Wilderness Atlas of Biodiversity, Sullivan probably was known most widely for the "Field & Street" column he wrote for more than ten years in the Chicago Reader. This was his forum for sharing with city folks his passion for exploring and restoring nature.
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Jerry Sullivan ventured to places such as Visitation Esker in the Palos Preserves in southwestern Cook County, which he called "one of the loveliest spots in the state of Illinois." He explained the way natural processes such as fire helped his favorite places thrive.
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When Sullivan died of cancer in 2000, his wife, Glenda Daniel, asked people to direct gifts in his memory to Chicago Wilderness. The ensuing donations from Sullivan's friends and colleagues led to a fitting tribute: a book. Released in April from the University of Chicago Press in association with the Chicago Wilderness coalition, Hunting for Frogs on Elston, and Other Tales From Field & Street is a stirring compilation of Sullivan's best columns.
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Although humans won't ever again set eyes on the once-colossal flocks of migrating passenger pigeons, our natural areas still teem with birds. "[F]or me," Sullivan wrote, "becoming a birder was like being cured of color blindness. Imagine seeing red and green after a lifetime of viewing the world in shades of gray." |
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The book is full of the warmly self-deprecating and instructive humor that Sullivan was known for. He takes the reader on adventures that range from snake hunting ("To get a better look at the ground I walked bent at the waist, and I lifted my feet so high between steps that I looked like a man trying to see if there was dog s--t on the sole of his shoes") to searching for firefly larvae in his garden ("I haven't found any yet, but I will keep looking — at least until the neighbors start complaining about this weird man who spends half the night crawling around his backyard shining a flashlight on his tomato plants"). The hopeful result of Frogs is that Sullivan will continue to inspire readers long after his passing. "…I think we desire to learn things in order to make some sense of the world," he wrote in 1997. "When we look at nature we can be overwhelmed by all the simultaneous stimuli that hit us. There are so many different kinds of plants, and while we try to sort them out, grasshoppers are leaping about and butterflies are fluttering by and dragonflies are zooming past and birds are calling. To the extent that we can sort out all these impressions, we alienated, atomized, postmodern people can feel at home, connected to something beyond ourselves."
Hunting for Frogs on Elston and Other Tales from Field and Street by Jerry Sullivan is published by The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Articles by and about Jerry Sullivan:
See also our profile of Bobby Sutton, who provided the illustrations for Hunting for Frogs on Elston.
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