蜜桃社

Remembering Michael Parrish 鈥�70

I was saddened to read today of the demise of my friend Michael Parrish ’70. He was my senior year roommate, and our year together represented all that was good about a mature academic experience at Reed. He was older, had been somewhere, seen some stuff. I had inherited tenancy in the upper floor of a Woodstock house a few blocks east of Lutz’s, near enough to the Plaid Pantry for easy access to quart bottles of stainless steel–aged Tavola, and convinced Michael to join me in trying to recreate the apparently successful lifestyle of the previous year’s tenants, Rowan Snyder ’69 and Ian Merwin ’69. Michael was a regular at Lutz’s, felt it was an important element in a writer’s life. He convinced me that his plan to open a bar on the beach in Mexico was a good aspiration. We were both seniors now, he had had the style for a while, and I was a recent grad of social posturing; first and foremost was finishing the thesis. We were both still willing to participate in the important Reed occasions like the Kinks concert and having friends by like Richard (’69) Crandall’s occasional visits for 10-second chess. And that’s the key. We really were interested in the work. And a few classes. We enjoyed talking to each other about that stuff, a different conversation from the years of coffee-shop styling, and different again from conferences. We kept in touch through all these years, and I always hoped I would see him in that palapa on the beach. I see him there now.

 

鈥擜ndreas Naumann 鈥�70

Vancouver, BC