During the 80's I took a class at Mission College called Journalism Survey. It took good and easy-paced looks at a variety of things. The teacher who leaned in the "print" direction was Jay. The first day of class we were asked, just write something for next class. Don't research, belabor, befuddle optional---not looking for wrong, just write.

The second class these were collected, and as we assembled for the third he had the papers ready to hand back with his comments. Looking down in a crafty manner he suddenly said, "Where'd you learn to write, Dan?" 98% chance of flattery, I reckoned, and played cute about a presumably typed, as opposed to chiseled out with the trusty Wearever, tome involving a little biography and current events. "Well, here and there."

Jay said, oh, you have something, came from somewhere. I brought up the Parochial School maelstrom and class was under way.

I would certainly call Jay a liberal but he had a twinkle eyed view of all kinds of political, certainly in the media, folderol. He enjoyed Wally George, for instance. I missed the recent documentary but every time an acquaintance was asked if he was "for real" jaws dropped.

I bring up the political angle because Jay and his colleague would bring up facts folks didn't know, maybe not as harshly as Rolling Stone Magazine would. They empathized with gays' struggles with dung-head bullies---come to think of it, my relative apologies to dung heads---and in this case AIDS. However, they pointed out how much maneuvering goes on about diseases of the hour and how sad it was the number one killer, heart disease, is continually shoved aside.

Hit home recently, with our loss and the love of writing.