In a way this project--writing about John--has been very frustrating for me. When I start to remember so many thoughts come flooding in its hard to pick out a single thing to write about. For the few years I knew John, every day that we had the chance to visit, work, play a game, was great experience. I think I'll just write as specifics come to mind and not concern myself with chronology.

I met John when he came to volunteer in the Resource Room at Washington School. Kathryn was working as our aide and had talked for some time about her brother whom she thought could be of help to us. For one thing he knew a lot about computers---which were just beginning to be used at our school--for another he had the time and would enjoy working with the kids.

On one of the first days at school, John observed a student teacher interchange and commented on it, his comment was so close to what I had been thinking that I was amazed. From then on conversing with John was like talking to a kindred spirit.

I can't remember how "Word Race" first came to our room. It was a word game played on the Atari computer. It was timed and had various levels of difficulty. It become a regular part of our lunchtime routine to play a round or two sometimes by ourselves, sometimes with others. The two of us were really pretty evenly matched--in fact we were quite competitive--Except for my father, I had never met anyone who was as intrigued by words and their meanings as I was.

Over time we discovered another common interest--classical music. When we listened to the radio we would sometimes play "Name that Tune." I remember one occasion when John was speculating that the composer of the particular number was some obscure person. He offered several arguments to support his opinion. I said, "It sounds a bit like something by Mahler." We listened intently when the announcer came on and said it was by Mahler. This is the only time I remember John being a trifle miffed that I was correct and he wasn't. Of course I only remember this because I was right!!

After John had been at school for a while, our friend Eleanor started to work on a paper for her master's degree. Her topic was Piaget's theory of child development. As the process evolved, Eleanor would come to school with pages of material she had written. Our job was to edit while John typed it into the computer. We could usually condense 10 written pages down to about two and we had so much fun doing it!! Fortunately Eleanor has a fairly strong self concept and we hopefully didn't hurt her feelings-much. At any rate we came to feel that the three of us together earned the Masters degree.

One day John mentioned that a friend of Kathryn's had come by to play some duets with him but that it hadn't gone too well. I said that I did play the piano but didn't know if I'd be any better but sometime I'd like to try. We didn't do anything until that summer when we had more free time. We played some things John had at the house, among them the Poet and Peasant Overture which he had played with his mom. John played the bottom, I played the top. We had so much fun. John always wanted to play faster and faster. I said my hands couldn't move that fast and I had twice as many notes to get in as he did. He played a tape of the Overture for me--of course it went even faster.

We tried to play at least twice a week. We went to Hart Brothers Music to buy some duet music. After we'd been playing for a while we actually went to Friendship Manor to present a program. It was raining harder that all get out--John's sport coat smelled like wet wool-- we laughed about it. The program went quite well and we certainly enjoyed ourselves.

John died on a Thursday. On Monday of that week Lynn took him to the doctor. When they were through they came back to school. After he told me what the doctor had said he showed me some music he had bought for us. We had talked about doing Bach and this was Sheep May Safely Graze - but to his disgust it was the PDQ Bach version - not at all what we wanted so he was going to exchange it. I remember hearing "Sheep May Safely Graze" on the radio just a few days after the funeral and just driving and crying. I still don't ever hear that piece without feeling a tug at my heart.

John was so very fond of Sandra-----to say kindred spirits is very true. They even subtracted alike. It was a special way they were taught in elementary school called the "Moral Method" of subtraction because you 'paid back' to the subtrahend what you 'borrowed' from the minuend.

Sandra lovingly and generously bought John's headstone. She and I spent many hours together planning and designing it.