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                        Greg Prestopino's memory

 It’s strange.  Some people, and this includes very close friends, are not memorable to me visually or aurally.  Even with focused and sustained concentration, their images are blurry, their memories dull.  Not so with Ric.

 His face, his smile, his laugh all come back to me in a flash, in bold relief without the slightest effort on my part.  No complicated conjuring necessary.  He is just there. 

 I loved our dinners at his apartment.  When Carol and I came to Peterborough, he would always ask us come to his place for dinner on our first night there.  Just so we wouldn’t have to think about where to get food.  But also to ask myriad questions about the year since we’d seen each other, what projects we were working on, what movies had we seen.  And his generosity  evidenced itself again and again in the concern and care he showed to my mother Liz after Presto died. 

 My favorite times with Ric were when we’d all pile into the car and drive to Peter and Edith’s for dinner.  After several bottles of wine, we were invariably in stitches over some silly subject.  And witty as we all thought we were, Ric could always be counted on to one-up us with an ironically smart comment on the previous ten sentences.  He’d sit there, looking down at his plate, listening while we bantered.  Then his head would come up, the beginnings of a smile crinkling the ends of his mouth and eyes and a small guffaw would escape his lips preparing us for the laughs that were sure to follow.  Then out would spill his thoughts, bubbling up on a fountain of hilarious insight. 

 I’ll miss that little moustache bobbing up and down, the salad niçoise dinners and above all, the laughs.