For an absent friend

Josh and I have been friends for fifty years—a friendship that arched over a lot of twists and turns in the road for us both.

We first met in September 1961, when we were freshmen at Harvard and roomed across the hall from each other.  We were friends all through college, and continued the friendship over the years.  He visited me a number of times in Nashville, although my visits to him in New York were much more numerous (as much as I hate to admit it, the number of reasons to come to New York outnumber the number of reasons to visit Nashville).

When I’d come to New York, we’d often arrange to have dinner together.  He enjoyed good food enormously, and loved to visit creative and out-of-the way restaurants.  The standing joke between us was for him to insist on some truly bizarre cuisine while I held out for Smith & Wollensky.  We compromised and had great evenings together stretching over decades.

In a restaurant, Josh had this habit, as doubtless all his friends will attest, of engaging the waiter or waitress in an extend dialog about the food before ordering.  How was it cooked, where did the ingredients come from, what was the waiter’s personal opinion of various dishes?  Ordering a meal took considerable time.  I feel confident that Josh never visited a McDonalds in his life, but if he did, I would have loved to have been there as he engaged the poor teenager behind the register in a long discussion of the relative merits of the Number 1 versus the Number 3 meal.

Josh, Phil, Walter and Leonard kayaking in Maine

We naturally talked about politics a lot.  Our ideologies were different, but I respected his opinion enormously and it informed a lot of things that I undertook over the years; more, I think, than he ever suspected.  The issues surrounding capital punishment and executions were very difficult for me, and it was Josh who one night in one of those restaurants led me through them.

Josh  didn’t try live up to the expectations of anyone else and he didn’t drift on the winds of chance.  He decided for himself what was important to him.  I admired him enormously for that and am sorry I never told him.

Josh with his Harvard and Alaska friends
Chichagof Island, Alaska
September 2011

During our college years, there were four of us who often did things together; Josh, Leonard Singer, Walter Mucha and me.  We had all lived together in Straus Hall as freshman.  Josh and I remained close, but as the years went on we lost track of the others.  When the Democratic convention was held in Boston in 2004, we had a reunion dinner, and pledged to get together every summer from then on.  We’ve done so every year since then.  Sometimes just a dinner in one of our cities, other times a few days—on the Maine Coast, at Josh’s place in Brewer, in Nashville.  This past September we all went to Alaska together.

We’ll continue the tradition again this summer, three of us now, and will raise a glass to our absent friend.

Godspeed, Josh.