Instead of repeating admiration for Michael's numerous professional achievements, breadth of knowledge, and skills as a speaker, I will share a personal story about how I met him.

On October 16, 1989, I flew into Luxembourg to talk about SGML parsing with the TEI metadata committee. At the time, I did not know any of the committee members. When I arrived at the small hotel where the meeting was to be held, I noticed a group of people chatting around a coffee table. I went up to a tall gentleman, hesitantly introduced myself, and asked if the group was there for the same meeting as I. Michael confirmed they were and invited me to join them for dinner.

The next morning I turned on the television in my room hoping to find some English language news. Only a few channels were available at the time, none in English. One broadcast described in French a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the San Francisco area with numerous injuries and deaths as well as significant property damage. I tried to convince myself I was watching a poorly made movie, but had to face the truth. I tried unsuccessfully to call home but the phone lines were down.

I was somewhat distracted during the first day of the meeting. It was about 12 hours before I was able to connect and learn that my family was unharmed and our house still standing. That assurance let me pay more attention to the meeting and travel issues.

The padlock that closed the zipper on my suitcase had disappeared on the flight over. There was a gift shop near the hotel that had some small bags in the window and I thought they might have a lock that would work. Michael kindly volunteered to come to the shop with me since I am completely monolingual. We got there as they were closing for the day, Michael tried to explain what we were looking for but could not remember the French term for "padlock". He looked around for a piece of paper so he could draw a picture. I had a notebook-style calendar in my purse with some blank pages in the back. I handed it with a pen to Michael, neglecting to mention that my passport was tucked inside. He reached for it, the passport flew out of the notebook and landed on what I thought was a bucket of sand but was actually a suds-covered bucket of water that was about to be used to mop the floor. Slowly, the passport sank through the layer of bubbles and descended into the water.

I will always remember the look on Michael's face as though he had done something wrong. He apologized profusely and needlessly. I assured him that it was my fault not his that my passport was in the mop water. I should have removed it from the calendar or at least told him it was there. It was a reason to laugh, somewhat hysterically, and relieve some stress. The passport, made of very strong paper, was undamaged. The shop did not sell locks.

Thank you, Michael, for your help then and your friendship afterwards.