Wednesday, September 4, 2024
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I am just seeing this, and I am so sorry to learn of Mike's passing. I grew up in Washington Mills next door to the Hungerfords. It was a rural-suburban neighborhood surrounded by farmland. We trooped through fields and hunted frogs in ponds. Mike once fell through the ice on a stream one warm day in early spring. In our teens we talked politics and listened to the music of the sixties. Here is a 1961 photo taken of me by Mike in his room. Note the "politics" display over my shoulder. Mike's mom, Shirley, subscribed the Time-Life series of great books, and Mike would receive a new book each month. He lent me “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” It was my introduction to James Joyce. We went our separate ways in college and thereafter, but our lives remained connected in ways I only understand from Mike’s obituary. I too was a conscientious objector. Mike did his community service in the OR at Community General, years before I worked in the administration there. Twenty years ago, we met one late afternoon in the doctor’s parking lot at Community. I was headed to a meeting outside. He was headed inside to represent the interests of a patient on the psychiatric unit. We chatted fondly but were both in a hurry. Why didn’t we reconnect in our latter years? I regret not doing so. Rest in peace, Mike. You lived your values.
3180 Bellevue Avenue