Quote of the day:
I have written on religion and science and have never made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist. My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, he has done such a bad job that he isn’t worth discussing.
—Isaac Asimov
Third year at Penn State and I was still rooming with Jeff Schrader in 517 Mifflin Hall, and Terry Carroll was back in room 520, but a lot of the others were gone. Steve and Allen had moved into an off-campus apartment with Herbie, and all the other pinochle players were missing as well, so no more card games.
But there were new guys who took their places.
For example, next to us in room 516 was Jeff Harris, who was the first outspoken atheist that I had ever met, so I felt right at home with him. He introduced me to the writings of Bertrand Russell, and although I have a few other memories of him, surprisingly none are really worth writing about.
His roommate was Jon Graves, and after Lloyd, whom I had gotten to know during my failed attempt to sell encyclopedias, Jon was only the second Black fellow that I became reasonably well acquainted with.
I’ve mentioned Jon a couple times previously when I wrote about going to the Stones concert in Philadelphia and of course, Jon was a fellow Agatha Christie fan.
There was another Black fellow on the fifth floor that year, but I’ve forgotten his name, but he and I were only very casual friends. Jon, however, had a bunch of other Black friends that I got to know. In particular there was Grover, who was always in good spirits. I never did figure out whether Grover was his first or last name. Perhaps he was named after President Cleveland.
Anyway, Jon was dating a white co-ed, and I think he must have been self-conscious about it, or perhaps he got some flack when they went out in public. One Saturday night Jon gathered together a bunch of the guys into his room (his roommate Jeff had gone home for the weekend) and asked us what we all thought about a Black dude dating a white girl. I don’t recall the answers that he received (not even mine), but nobody challenged him, whatever they may have privately thought. For the record, I had no problem with it; I just don’t recall how I might have phrased it.
Jon had some friends attending Syracuse University, and one weekend he got three or four of us to travel up there. I was the driver again, if you can believe that. I think it was about a four hour drive each way. I don’t recall who else went. In fact, I really don’t recall much about that weekend, except I think we all had a pretty good time. I think everyone should spend at least one weekend at Syracuse University. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
After that year, as I recall Jon moved into an apartment with his girlfriend. In any case, I never saw him again.
While trying to locate Jon recently I came across the obituary for a Jonathan S. Graves, who died on January 30, 2007.
Was that “my” Jon Graves?
The problem was that there was nothing in the obit to refer back to his parents nor was there any reference to his having gone to Penn State. So a little more digging was in order, and I was hoping to prove that it wasn’t the fellow that I knew way back when.
The obit mentioned a sister and brother, Pamela and Mark, although I didn’t particularly remember either of them, but further searching revealed the sad news that Mark died later in 2007 and his obit mentioned their parents’ names, Frances Farmer Graves and Dr. John Graves. And I recalled that Jon’s father was a doctor.
Digging into the records a bit deeper and I found that Jonathan Sanders Graves was born in July 1950, so that seemed to fit the age for Jon, and furthermore Jonathan’s race was Black. Well, that moved the needle from a 70% match to perhaps a 90%. This was further confirmed when I found the 1950 census records for the family that showed that Frances, John, and Pamela (the census was conducted in April before Jonathan was born) were listed as Negro. Dr. John Graves, by the way, was a physician who worked at City Hospital.
I’m going to keep the needle at 95% until I can find some confirmation that Jonathan Sanders Graves attended Penn State, but I’m really not holding out much hope at this point. I think I have to face the fact that yet another guy that I knew and liked from Penn State days is no longer with us.