28 August 2015

Notes - lunch / word of a friend's passing /

         Late morning. You are at the Szechuan House – on Rt. 42 just south of the I-275 interchange waiting for Rich G.

         1151 hours. I have not been here before, but Rich recommended it saying he wants the Chinese Buffet so that’s what we’re having as it is fine with me.

         Rich should be here shortly. When home we can work on Brothers Ten. I’ll help you cut it down. Later, dude. – Amorella

         You had a good longer lunch and conversation with Rich G. and Dave W. When home you found Carol sitting on the deck reading under the umbrella. After a short while you were both running errands then Carol took time to walk at the community center. More errands and now you are in the shade on the front porch. Carol is still working on Bones and Ashes. Once online you found you old friend from Kindergarten through high school, within renewed kinship since the fifty-year reunion, Donald ‘Bill’ Miller, died today. Jean had sent the notice. You had not gotten up to see him like you had attended to do and feel bad about it. – Amorella

         1713 hours. We were friends through the grades. I lost touch with him when in the Fall of 1960 Bill went to Miami University at Oxford while I was working full time at Foseco’s (foundry technology) in Cleveland. In 1967-68 I worked with his wife (as a fellow teacher) at Whitehall Yearling High School on the East Side of Columbus. We ran into one another at the 100-Year Anniversary of Westerville Schools in the 1990’s I believe, but it wasn’t until the year before our 50th Reunion that I saw him pretty regularly – six times a year or so at bi monthly suppers. Bill, Fritz and myself almost always sat together at the close end of the table where he could most easily manipulate his electric wheelchair. Jean usually sat near us on the other side of the table. Jean and I had weathered K – 12 together also. Miller Noble and Orndorff – we were pretty much always in the same class row in all our shared classes. Bill ran track and played the drums in the band. He focused on math and science and eventually became the head of the physics department at Ohio State. His parents (Don and Rachel) were best friends with Eugene [Gene] and Francis Schick, (my Uncle D and Aunt Fran). When Bill was at physics conferences in California he would stop in and see them (sometimes pulling up in his electric wheelchair). It is fitting (to me) to put their names here with his. I think Bill would have liked that. Being a part of old Westerville – friends and families are intertwined through generations. 
***

Don Miller
1942-2015
Faculty Emeritus,
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
The Ohio State University
***

         Post. - Amorella

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