Ronald Schlundt

Condolences to Atsuko during this very difficult time.  Bill was a much valued faculty member in the Far East Division (Asian Division, now)  when I taught there in the mid 1970's. 

Bob Barcus

One of the kindest men ever. Always ready to help,commiserate, and smile. His presence brightened my life. I'm  ever grateful. Thanks Bil.

Bob

Albert Ashforth

Before leaving for the Asian Division, Bill spent three years in Europe, and during 1974 he and I made the trip by rail from Munich to Augsburg twice each week. Our conversations ranged from geological rock formations in Bavaria to the music of Andres Segovia to daily life in NYC, where we'd both previously lived. I clearly recall one hilarious incident which occurred when a woman tried to buck the taxi line while Bill and I were waiting for a ride out to Sheridan Kaserne. As a number of colleagues have pointed out, Bill had a dry sense of humor. Sayonara.

Pamela Carlton

I offer my sincerest sympathy to Atsuko-san and to all others who are missing Bill.  Bill and Atsuko-san were very kind to me over the years.  We met when I taught in the Asian Division between 1984 and 1986, and reconnected when I was in Asia again between 2004 and 2011.  Though Atsuko-san could not be persuaded to do any flamenco dancing, Bill still loved to play flamenco guitar and continued to be very good at it.  He will surely be missed by many.

Ggisela Nass

OMA lost one of its finest! I feel honored to have known and interacted with Bill during my time in the Asian Division in the 1980s. Bill was one of those rare individuals who was sincerely interested in the other person. He had wisdom and compassion and he sure liked to hear a good story and share a heartfelt laugh! It saddens me deeply that he had to leave so soon. My sincere condolences to Atsuko-san!

Ralph Millis

For many of us as faculty, our first impression of Bill Berglof was that he was close-to-the-vest, sort of anal retentive in a unique and interesting way.  You really felt that he, although unremittingly polite would never, could never, reveal anything beneath his passive, almost rictus smile.  That he would always present a superficial and aloof persona even when he was empathetic . . .  that everything was always “by the book,” a product of an unremitting loyalty to an unthinking bureaucratic and corporate College Park agenda.   And I was, and you would be . . . really wrong.

He became “Dollar Bill” to me in 1984, about six months after I became an administrator in the Asian Division’s HQ’s at Yokota AB and really got to know him as deeply as any colleague could, I guess.  I teasingly greeted him one morning in The Bullpen, the HQ’s outer office, with what I thought was this spur-of-the-moment, clever “Dollar Bill” sally.  Uncharacteristically, though, Bill grimaced, showed irritation at this.  Surprised at this unheard-of flash of emotion, I suddenly realized that he thought I was implying that he was stingy, some sort of Gradgrind tightwad.  Panicked and apologetic, I rattled out in a frantic rush:  I was just calling him the nickname of Bill Bradley, nonpareil –  Princeton, Oxford, U.S. Senator, New York Knick – so called because he was tireless, the hardest worker, the most dedicated, the most sensitive to “team mates,” the one you could always count on to take the last shot and score . . . . the man I had come to know in the last half-year; in short, both Bills were “sound as a U.S. dollar,” something to hang your beret on thirty-something years ago, if not these days.  After my voice trailed off, there we were in front of the reception desk, standing and shuffling our feet, avoiding eye contact with each other, both of us trying to gather the strands of our shredded reserves . . . embarrassed as hell.  And so “Dollar Bill” it was. . . .

When I think of Bill and his innate sense of I honesty, I always think of the advice my grandfather, a realist in a naïve world, told me when I went off to the “real world” of college.  Echoing in spirit Harry Truman’s comment to Merle Miller, my grandfather warned “If a man bullshits about how honest he is, and his drinking pals smile and bob their heads up and down, right then and there you just run off to your smokehouse and double-lock it.”  I and I daresay those who knew Bill well, never had to lock our smokehouses when he bumped up against us in our varied lives.  A number of his friends – colleagues -- have shared fond remembrances here about Bill.  Rest assured they are right:  he was the finest administrative advocate in the Asian Division for each faculty member and all the staff down to even the part-time field rep level.  Bill was obsessed with treating people, and the Truth, with the dignity they and It deserve.  He was almost obsessively loyal to UMAD and his colleagues; he saw no contradiction or cross purposes here.  He had one of the most finely-tuned and sensitive shit-detectors I have ever seen; accordingly, he could cut through the haze of pretense and selfishness, no matter what the source, be it high or low, that is endemic in any organization, especially academic ones, and focus on the good, the valuable, the enduring.

Regarding Bill’s seemingly quiet, almost humorless demeanor:  many are wrong here, too.  Bill and Atsuko invited Barbara and me to house-sit their Yokota on-base digs when they went on leave back to the States over Christmas and New Year’s break 1984/85.  Glad for a holiday respite from our cramped Fussa off-base closet apartment, we gladly accepted.  The only negative was the presence of their nasty, vicious, cunning, cruel old “boar” cat; he and I fell into an immediate loathing for each other.  He was no longer welcome on the kitchen counter.  A few days we moved in, I noticed a strange smell that pervaded everything in the house, at the office, in the car.  After a week or so it hit me, figuratively and almost literally:  that damned vengeful cat had in one of my unguarded moments sneakily and unethically “marked” all my clean underwear

For many of us as faculty, our first impression of Bill Berglof was that he was close-to-the-vest, sort of anal retentive in a unique and interesting way.  You really felt that he, although unremittingly polite would never, could never, reveal anything beneath his passive, almost rictus smile.  That he would always present a superficial and aloof persona even when he was empathetic . . .  that everything was always “by the book,” a product of an unremitting loyalty to an unthinking bureaucratic and corporate College Park agenda.   And I was, and you would be . . . really wrong.

He became “Dollar Bill” to me in 1984, about six months after I became an administrator in the Asian Division’s HQ’s at Yokota AB and really got to know him as deeply as any colleague could, I guess.  I teasingly greeted him one morning in The Bullpen, the HQ’s outer office, with what I thought was this spur-of-the-moment, clever “Dollar Bill” sally.  Uncharacteristically, though, Bill grimaced, showed irritation at this.  Surprised at this unheard-of flash of emotion, I suddenly realized that he thought I was implying that he was stingy, some sort of Gradgrind tightwad.  Panicked and apologetic, I rattled out in a frantic rush:  I was just calling him the nickname of Bill Bradley, nonpareil –  Princeton, Oxford, U.S. Senator, New York Knick – so called because he was tireless, the hardest worker, the most dedicated, the most sensitive to “team mates,” the one you could always count on to take the last shot and score . . . . the man I had come to know in the last half-year; in short, both Bills were “sound as a U.S. dollar,” something to hang your beret on thirty-something years ago, if not these days.  After my voice trailed off, there we were in front of the reception desk, standing and shuffling our feet, avoiding eye contact with each other, both of us trying to gather the strands of our shredded reserves . . . embarrassed as hell.  And so “Dollar Bill” it was. . . .

When I think of Bill and his innate sense of I honesty, I always think of the advice my grandfather, a realist in a naïve world, told me when I went off to the “real world” of college.  Echoing in spirit Harry Truman’s comment to Merle Miller, my grandfather warned “If a man bullshits about how honest he is, and his drinking pals smile and bob their heads up and down, right then and there you just run off to your smokehouse and double-lock it.”  I and I daresay those who knew Bill well, never had to lock our smokehouses when he bumped up against us in our varied lives.  A number of his friends – colleagues -- have shared fond remembrances here about Bill.  Rest assured they are right:  he was the finest administrative advocate in the Asian Division for each faculty member and all the staff down to even the part-time field rep level.  Bill was obsessed with treating people, and the Truth, with the dignity they and It deserve.  He was almost obsessively loyal to UMAD and his colleagues; he saw no contradiction or cross purposes here.  He had one of the most finely-tuned and sensitive shit-detectors I have ever seen; accordingly, he could cut through the haze of pretense and selfishness, no matter what the source, be it high or low, that is endemic in any organization, especially academic ones, and focus on the good, the valuable, the enduring.

Regarding Bill’s seemingly quiet, almost humorless demeanor:  many are wrong here, too.  Bill and Atsuko invited Barbara and me to house-sit their Yokota on-base digs when they went on leave back to the States over Christmas and New Year’s break 1984/85.  Glad for a holiday respite from our cramped Fussa off-base closet apartment, we gladly accepted.  The only negative was the presence of their nasty, vicious, cunning, cruel old “boar” cat; he and I fell into an immediate loathing for each other.  He was no longer welcome on the kitchen counter.  A few days we moved in, I noticed a strange smell that pervaded everything in the house, at the office, in the car.  After a week or so it hit me, figuratively and almost literally:  that damned vengeful cat had in one of my unguarded moments sneakily and unethically “marked” all my clean underwear stacked neatly on the table next to the dryer in the laundry room.  Hester Prynne had nothing on me, except mine was yellow.  Take it from one who knows, Revenge Ain’t Sweet.  When Bill returned from leave, responding to his “How did it go?” I got in his face:  “Great!  P__s on you and the cat you rode in on!”  Dollar Bill Berglof cracked up.  He actually laughed out loud then and always smiled knowingly, broadly, in later times when I said the magic words again.  The last time I was at Yokota Bill saw me off at the ubiquitous 0400 show time at the dreaded MAC Terminal Purgatory; I barked the horrible imprecation, waved goodbye, and we grinned like two sleep-deprived fools sharing a terrifyingly funny secret.

One final observation, tribute, to scuttle the libel that Bill somehow was somehow deficient in feeling, or at least couldn’t easily show it.  He, of course, as some of his friends have noted, was seemingly a pale Scandinavian introvert, a Max Von Sydow incarnation not given to shows of emotion.  The wonderful, lovely skyrocket that is Atsuko is another matter.  She is a force of nature . . . brash, open, mercurial, the most un-Japanese Japanese woman ever created, the very definition of an extrovert.  A Japanese flamenco dancer, for God’s sake!  I, like many others, thought Bill and Atsuko were sort of a Trans-Pacific Felix and Oscar, at odds and uncomfortable. . . . Wrong again.  One of the first times I saw Atsuko at a UMAD ( then called the politically incorrect “Far East Division”)  gathering in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s,  she was working the crowd like Joan Rivers or I Love Lucy on the assembly line.  She danced and laughed like Zorba.  And there was Dollar Bill, blending into the wall paper, I thought.  Then I noticed he was following her every move with a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and with eyes that were filled with what can only be described as overflowing love, adoration, and pride in her.  I was stunned at this man. .  . and I felt good . . . really good . . . and I still do at the memory.  If I – we – must live with the pain at his loss, what must his wonderful love Atsuko feel? . . .  How she can bear this I cannot fathom.

Like Emory Trosper, his good friend and Maryland colleague, Dollar Bill was a good man, and his own man. Both Emory and Dollar Bill are gone now . . . To mention them in the same breath is to honor them both.  I miss them.

stacked neatly on the table next to the dryer in the laundry room.  Hester Prynne had nothing on me, except mine was yellow.  Take it from one who knows, Revenge Ain’t Sweet.  When Bill returned from leave, responding to his “How did it go?” I got in his face:  “Great!  P__s on you and the cat you rode in on!”  Dollar Bill Berglof cracked up.  He actually laughed out loud then and always smiled knowingly, broadly, in later times when I said the magic words again.  The last time I was at Yokota Bill saw me off at the ubiquitous 0400 show time at the dreaded MAC Terminal Purgatory; I barked the horrible imprecation, waved goodbye, and we grinned like two sleep-deprived fools sharing a terrifyingly funny secret.

One final observation, tribute, to scuttle the libel that Bill somehow was somehow deficient in feeling, or at least couldn’t easily show it.  He, of course, as some of his friends have noted, was seemingly a pale Scandinavian introvert, a Max Von Sydow incarnation not given to shows of emotion.  The wonderful, lovely skyrocket that is Atsuko is another matter.  She is a force of nature . . . brash, open, mercurial, the most un-Japanese Japanese woman ever created, the very definition of an extrovert.  A Japanese flamenco dancer, for God’s sake!  I, like many others, thought Bill and Atsuko were sort of a Trans-Pacific Felix and Oscar, at odds and uncomfortable. . . . Wrong again.  One of the first times I saw Atsuko at a UMAD ( then called the politically incorrect “Far East Division”)  gathering in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s,  she was working the crowd like Joan Rivers or I Love Lucy on the assembly line.  She danced and laughed like Zorba.  And there was Dollar Bill, blending into the wall paper, I thought.  Then I noticed he was following her every move with a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and with eyes that were filled with what can only be described as overflowing love, adoration, and pride in her.  I was stunned at this man. .  . and I felt good . . . really good . . . and I still do at the memory.  If I – we – must live with the pain at his loss, what must his wonderful love Atsuko feel? . . .  How she can bear this I cannot fathom.

Like Emory Trosper, his good friend and Maryland colleague, Dollar Bill was a good man, and his own man. Both Emory and Dollar Bill are gone now . . . To mention them in the same breath is to honor them both.  I miss them.

Ralph Millis

Sorry for the above garbled entry . . .  the first few paragraphs are repeated further on down with the rest of the entry.  Bill would, of course, have caught this and blue-pencilled it and let me know -- gently, of course.  Another reason I miss him. . . .

Bren Shuler

I was most saddened to learn of the passing of Bill Berglof.  By the time I started working at UMUC Asia Dr. Berglof rarely stepped into the classroom and  I only knew him as our chief editor of any important letter, brochure, flyer, catalog, or RFP coming out of the Director's Office or the Asian Division.  Boy could he turn a phrase and he had a top-notch editorial eye for detail!  I enjoyed collaborating with him in these various projects and I know his astute writing ability improved my own as well.  

In working with Bill I also got to learn of his gentle humor, ready wit, and ability to come turn up with a fitting pun--something I regularly engaged him in along with fellow punster Frank Gualtieri.  

Bill Berglof will always be someone who I cherished as a friend and colleague; and is the epitome of an Asian Marylander.  

Christine Kikuchi

Bill had the most amazing sense of humor. He lived his life as a kind man. That he has passed is a very sad thing for the UMUC community.

Estela Zatania

Bill Berglof was a flamenco guitarist.  I can't think of him any other way.  One of the first people I came into contact with in the early 1960s when I was studying flamenco.  That was nearly 60 years ago, and now I see his kind face on a memorial page.  Bill was well-loved in the flamenco community by those of us who knew him.  An elegant, kind and talented man with a gentle sense of humor.  I'm now a well-known flamenco specialist, and I can say Bill was an excellent guitarist indeed.  I hadn't seen him in many many years, but miss him now that he's gone.  The attached photo was taken in Malaga Spain in 1974, Bill in the middle, me standing next to him holding my son, and Bill's wife Atsuko on the far right.  Thank you for reading these words about dear Bill.