Richard

Richard has gone. I knew him for forty years and only learnt of his death by accident today while checking out Linkedin. It was a real shock I can tell you.

He was the first American I had ever met and we lived together as the only white people on a remote Fijian island - both teaching in the island's only secondary school. He was a Peace Corps volunteer and I was sponsored by the British equivalent - Voluntary Service Overseas. Previously, I blogged about him here.

A few years later, when I was a student,  I visited him in his family home in Minneapolis. We drove up to the family's self-built cabin on the Canadian border and then later still his company sent him over to England for three years. He came up to Sheffield to see us and we visited him in Datchet near Windsor a couple of times. He married a lovely Korean lady called Yong Sun and they had a son called Adrian. Like Shirley, Yong Sun then suffered a traumatic ectopic pregnancy so there were to be no more children.

We always exchanged Christmas cards and it pleases me greatly that though he never left comments, in the last three years of his life  he followed this blog quite religiously. It amused him and besides he was an engineer and a scientist - he found himself fascinated by people who displayed more literary or artistic energy.

He was very kind and had a dry sense of humour. He attended the universities of North Dakota and Minnesota and in his youth played American college football to a high standard. I don't know why he died. He was only sixty five. He had a twin brother called Roger and a sister called Mary. I shall always remember him fondly and feel very sad that we shan't meet again. Sweet dreams Richard - a true friend of mine... 

Richard J. Mehus

May 19th 1947 - June 13th 2012

R.I.P.