John Dennis

One of the reasons I started this blog is that John died before I had contacted him.  He was one of my close friends in Bordeaux and we saw each other the following year on campus at UCSB.  I remember meeting his mother at commencement (1970).  Then he went his way and I went mine.  The years passed.  I couldn't even remember his last name.  To us (Alain and I) he was always just "Jean-Pierre le noir" (I think his middle name was Pierre, or maybe Peter) because we had several other good friends named "Jean-Pierre".  Here's a picture of John, me, Alain, Jean-Pierre de Barbeyrac and Pierre (Alain's brother) at the Le Mans auto races, Sept 28, 1968. 
A few years ago, I found his last name and started searching for him on the Internet.  Lo and behold, there he was at St Mary's, only a hop, skip and a jump from Berkeley where our son was a student.  I wrote him an email, but when he didn't reply (maybe he didn't even get mine), I let it go, telling myself that I'd try again some day...  "Some day" never came.  If only I had had even one day with him, or even one long email each way, I would be able to accept his death with more serenity.  It was my fault. I waited too long.

http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/news-and-events/special/john-dennis/

So, I have decided that we must not wait for "some day".  We must act now to reconnect.  In Brownies we used to sing, "Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold". 
I remember him telling us that he wasn't "black", that he was "chocolate", and that we weren't "white", that we were "pink"!  Oh, how that made us laugh! 

If truth be told, Jean-Pierre, you were Gold--pure Gold!  Rest in peace.