Jon KALB

Still remember him! Mario

Hi, I don´t have an explanation for that, but today, before this e-mail reached me, I have thougt intensively about Jon, who accompanied me and my colleagues (Technical University of Berlin) on a field trip in North Sudan in the early 1990. He was a nice and funny guy, very competent and it was great fun to drive with him for 3 weeks in our jeep to the area of Gedaref, SE Sudan. I was very touched when I heard that he has passed away. Mario from Berlin

Jon and I were duck hunting one weekend. We were passing through a narrow field, he on the right side and I on the left. As we passed some abandoned farm equipment (we were about 70 yards away from each other) I fired a shot from my 20 gauge up in the air to rain birdshot onto Jon. I could hear the clinking of shot hitting the old tractor near him. Then , after a beat, I heard Jon fire his 12 gauge and heard the birdshot rain down on the machine near me. I then heard him laughing and calling...

I have just learned that our esteemed colleague Jon Kalb has already passed away in 2017. We met in Khartoum in the early 1990s and he accompanied us on an expedition to the Gedaref area. He was a competent colleague and friend, courageous and had a lot of American humour.
He also visited us at the Technical University in Berlin.
We all liked him very much!
RIP

I met Jon and family in Addis Ababa in late 1972 when on my first job there, down in the Awash basin of the Afar. Over the next few years we often met when both in town. Once though in early 1973 I tried, without a guide, to find his field camp in middle of nowhere between a newly completed road and the Awash river. Late leaving Addis, the day was running away fast, and i did not fancy having to overnight in bushland full of imagined carnivores: i asked the driver to head back to the road...

I met Jon many years ago at a polo match in Sa Antonio. Might be 1963 or so. He was introduced to me by our mutual friend, A. D. Zucht. He was a dreamboat on a great pony! Who could resist? We dated several months, but then drifted apart. The fact that I got engaged might have had something to do with it.
I was very interested in archeology, and he had such great stories to tell. Diving on wrecks in the Caribbean and more. I was studying at Trinity at the time, and Jon really insisted that...

Dear Judy, Justine and Spring,
I was so saddened to learn of Jon's death. You probably don't remember, but my late husband, Doug Cramer, was a colleague, field explorer with, and a good friend of Jon's. I lost touch with him and your family after my own husband's death, but I remember Jon as a charismatic and undeniably curious person who apparently did not let anything, even his Parkinson's disease, stop him from persuing his passions and interests. My deepest sympathies go out to you...

I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Jon a few years ago in the Mountains of West Texas. It was quite an adventure and it was all Jon's idea. He shared experiences with me (a fellow field scientist) that changed the way I look at the world around me. He had an incredibly powerful personality, in some few moments difficult, but overall infectious and inspiring. I am so grateful for the brief and memorable time I spent with him. Cheers to that large man!