For me -- as for most of you -- David was many things, but basically he was my friend.

We make friends in various ways.  Most of us make them through and with people that we encounter frequently; people with whom we work and play and pray, with whom we share some common endeavor, activity, or belief.  However, the elements of some friendships are so disparate and so unusual in their beginning that they carry with them a sense of wonderment and mystery.  I kind of looked at my friendship with David in that way and I think he did too.

At a recent little party for me he was gracious enough to speak and he talked of the fact that we were such different people and that we had come to know each other in such an unusual way.  Indeed it was an unusual way to meet and therein hangs a little tale which I would like to tell you because it illustrates what I have just said and because it says something about Dave which all of you who know him will recognize.

It concerns something that has never been very high on my list of priorities; sometimes it slips off my priorities.   Most of you wouldn't know that because my wife, Helen, usually covers up for me.  But this involves our lawn.  Now when we first got to Iowa City I was very busy and Helen was probably busier than I was and so the lawn suffered as a result and one day she told me that she had contracted with a very young and obliging young fellow to mow the lawn.  He was a little young but he was obliging and pleasant and he set about the task.  It was Chuck.  I think that was the beginning of the end of Chuck's lawn mowing business.  Shortly after the motor stopped and when I looked outside Chuck was gone and he didn't come to be paid.  He had left and the job wasn't quite done.

Well, sometime after that -- I think it was the next day, Saturday or Sunday morning, we heard the lawn mower going again and when I looked outside I recognized who was there, although I didn't know him at the time; it was of course the Dean of the Law School.  I think he was giving Chuck his first lesson in contracts.  And so a friendship was born.

Why would such a friendship beginning so peculiarly nourish itself and continue?  Well, I can't really explain that.  But I can say that it was interesting; it was stimulating and it was at times challenging.

I shouldn't have been surprised to find myself at one time the at-large-member of the Credentials Committee of the American Association of Law Schools.  Things happened when you knew Dave.  You learned things.  I enjoyed it but I was glad to get back to bypass operations.

There was more.  I mean the friendship did flourish and it encompassed our families.  I think I can say that Rhoda and Helen are as good friends as friends could be and my boys found a brother in Chuck; even today one of them finds himself living in a distant city with Chuck.  I think they have taken up just as if they were brothers.

And, there is another thing.  Most of you who know us know that the Rossis have been waiting for a girl for a long time.  We are still hopeful.  I mean daughters-in-laws.  But in the meantime, the Vernons have been good enough to provide us with two daughters in Amy and Alyse.

So, yes, friendships are what keep us going and what sustain us.  In this passing parade there is a lot to make us happy; there is a lot to make us sad and today, like you, I'm sad because I have lost a friend but at the same time I am very grateful.  I am very grateful for having had that friend and once more I'm grateful for being grateful because such gratitude brings with it a kind of happiness that remains when friends must part.