The 20th anniversary get together of my high school class is coming up in September. That’s depressing in and of itself, plus add on the fact that I’m still too fat to be going to my reunion and, boy, my mood’s been in the toilet (one more thing to be depressed about these days and struggling against it). Anyway, they have a website set up for he reunion and one of the pages was for people from our class (1987 for those who suck at math as much as I do) who passed away and will be paid tribute to at the reunion. Two of them actually died before graduation and were given diplomas posthumously, but that I remember. This time there were a few more people up there, but the one that struck hard was my friend Vladimir France.
Vlad was a great guy. We always had something nice to say to each other in the halls of Art & Design. He was always friendly, always smiling a recognizable smile. Later he went to the same college I went to, transferring to Hunter College from Washington state (I believe). He was about the same age as me (I’m about 8 months older) and he was in much better shape than me to say the least. He apparently died this year in January of a sudden heart attack. To see his face on the tribute page was an absolute shock. I’m still in a bit of shock thinking about this.
While I wasn’t as best of friends as we could have been (we lost touch after I graduated from Hunter) I still remember him. He was one of the guys that made high school bearable for me. While others knew him better, I am glad to be able to call him a friend. He will definitely be missed.