Looking up the Saranac River from the Cadyville beach. This is one of the last spots where the ice goes out. Most of the river upstream is flowing along. The river's high from spring runoff, really cool to see. Cadyvill beach is where we took our canoes out when we went on those famous canoe trips. It's also famous to Liza and me because it's where I left my brand new Docksiders when I was in college. I loved those shoes and was so proud of them--I bought them at the Sperry outlet in Naugatuck, Conn. with my friend Teddy.

Teddy was a lot of fun. My roomate Sally and I helped him get through college. We were pretty sure he had a reading disability so we used to take what he'd written for a paper and turn it into a real paper. Teddy drove Formula 4 race cars (the Indy 500 cars are Formula 1). His hero was Peter Revson, who was killed during a race while we were in college. That was really sad. Teddy used to sign his Christmas cards "Peter Revson."

Sally and I were roomates all four years of college but ours was not a good relationship. She was from Ohio so we had our childhoods sort of in common. The first 3 years were great and we had a great time. We had a love/hate relationship our senior year and it was terribly difficult. We knew we cared deeply for each other but we'd lost the ability to communicate and there were other relationships that complicated things. After college it got even worse. First we got an apartment in Bridgeport (where we went to college), then we both found other places to live with other people (I lived in a great house in Westport with Teddy and another friend). Things got worse. Sally went to law school and I went to library school and we saw each other once. Sally died in a car accident on her way home from school her second year in law school. It was such a hard thing for me to deal with, and I didn't fly to Cleveland for her funeral. That was when I learned that it's good to go to a person's funeral because, though you may not be glad you did, there's always a chance you'll regret it if you don't. It would have meant a lot to her parents if I'd gone, and it would have meant a lot to me if I'd gone. For years I had a hard time accepting her death. I think of her fairly often and wish I could share my life experiences with her.