Here is Annette Aiello in her lab, showing one of her cabinets of specimens. She’s worked for Smithsonian since 1977, the year I started grad school. Her bookcases are full of notebooks, carefully numbered and kept. Her father was a famous manikin designer and he sculpted them and then, later, even manufactured them in their basement. He would let the children watch him sculpt and work if they were very still and didn’t speak. She said there’d be a row of 8 neighborhood kids in their basement, sitting silent and still for hours watching him. Also, one of her first jobs was working at a jewelry shop. Little white boxes…shiny, beautiful objects….precious.