Deceased December 26, 2002

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In Memory

Why am I not surprised that Ed "Luigi" Lucaire wrote his own obituary and that he did it with humility, humor and perspective, leaving us with our sense of sadness leavened by his words and memories they brought back. Here follows Luigi's obit:

"L. Edward Lucaire lost his fight with acute lymphoblastic leukemia on Dec. 26, 2002, after a year of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a bone marrow transplant.

"Born in Teaneck, N.J., on Aug. 29, 1942, Ed was an older member of the class because he joined the U.S. Army at age 17, after graduating from Ridgewood (N.J.) High School, and entered Amherst after serving his three-year enlistment. Slated to study electrical engineering at a local New Jersey college, he decided to 'join the army and see the world.' He was stationed, among other places, with the United Nations Command in Seoul, Korea and was, in his words, a 'Remington Raider,' a clerk-typist.

"As a freshman at Amherst, Ed played 'third strong' (his words!) on Scully Scandrett's freshman soccer team, but nevertheless enjoyed the camaraderie and the energetic workouts. In an effort to expand his athletic experience, he also tried out for ice hockey—he and Dick Marriott, from Virginia, both stood out in the rink because they were the only two hockey aspirants who wore figure skates. The truth was that Ed had never played an organized game of hockey in his life but was not embarrassed a bit to try to skate with the likes of Pierpont, Blair and company.

"Ed was a highly active member of Chi Psi fraternity. He served as treasurer in his junior year and was elected president in his senior year. He majored in psychology. He served as Amherst '67's class secretary from 1992 to 2002 and was an active member of most class reunion committees.

"Ed's ending up at Amherst was very deliberate. On his first day in the army, after being abruptly awakened in a Fort Dix barracks at 4:30 a.m., he was marched to the mess hall, and on the way, he realized that he should have gone to college instead. He spent much of the three years sending away for college catalogs and studying college curricula. He zeroed in on Amherst because, in his words, 'it has a great academic reputation, Robert Frost and Archibald MacLeish taught there, and Smith and Mt. Holyoke were only a few miles away.' Ed also was a big proponent of the core curriculum.

"Rather than go to grad school or join the Peace Corps, Ed exuberantly started an advertising career at Compton Advertising, where he was a 'numbers cruncher' on the Proctor & Gamble account. Though he rose rapidly in the media ranks, he switched to become an 'account man' at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn on the Pepsi account. Ed later worked for Jerry Della Femina and Mary Wells Lawrence in advertising's 'go-go' 1970s.

"He left Marsteller Advertising, a division of Young & Rubicam, in the early 1980s as a vice president and became a full-time freelance writer, publishing fact-filled, amusing books and humorous articles. His articles and book reviews appeared in New York magazine, The Daily News (NY), The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others. Ed's first published article typified his 'take' on the common usages of daily living. For New York he wrote 'Hello Central, Get Me Ronald Roach!,' in which he 'reviewed' the Manhattan telephone book as if it were a newly-published pop reference book. His book publishers included Warner Books, Delacorte/Dell, Stein & Day, St. Martin's, Prentice-Hall, Perigee/Putnam and Random House.

"Ed was a contributing writer to The Cornell Illustrated Encyclopedia of Health (LifeLine Press), wrote book reviews for the Literary Guild, and worked on dozens of his book proposals, which ran the gamut from trivia (real names of famous people) to surprisingly serious (Vietnam, the Holocaust).

"Ed is survived by his wife Lewise, a daughter Lauren '96 and son Ed Jr. (Bowdoin '99). He is also survived by his mother, Alice Lucaire, and adoptive father, William Lucaire, of Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., as well as a sister, Elvira, and a brother, Juan.

"He had a fascinating heritage. Born with the name Luis E. Villegas, Ed was also the son of Dr. Juan A. Villegas, a Columbian immigrant of Spanish descent, who died in Ed's early childhood. Ed's aunt, Lorencita Villegas de Santos, was the popular wife of Columbia's president (1938-1942) Eduardo Santos. The Villegas family was related to Simon Bolivar, the 'Great Liberator' of South America, a noteworthy fact that Ed verified on his visits to Bogota."

Here are my thoughts:

I didn't really know Ed "Luigi" Lucaire very well in undergraduate days. It was only after several years, and especially as chair of the 20th and 25th Reunions, that I became close to him. Luigi handled the publicity and attendance functions so we were constantly in contact. Later, when we started the Homecoming dinners, he did the same thing, though there was never anything formal. He was invaluable. As class scribe and a genetically engineered gossip, he was always ready to make a call, write a note, send an email to drum up support and attendance. Frequently, I would get a message on my answering machine in which he used up all of the allotted time. The next message would be Luigi again, continuing the first one.

His Class Notes redefined "voluminous" and covered the news of the entire class, not just a close coterie of undergraduate friends or fraternity brothers. His interests and resources were far flung, and he raised networking to the level of an art form. What always came across was his sincere interest in the people he was writing or talking about.

Luigi used to say that he lived by his wits, albeit with a sense of abashment. For a man who said he didn't know where the next buck was coming from, he (and Lewise) did a remarkable job of rearing two terrific children and supporting a loving household. I visited Luigi in late October while he was trying to get his blood cell counts to the level where he could have the bone marrow transplant. We drank a few bottles of St. Pauli Girl (non-alcoholic) beer and chatted about friends and experiences and "what it all meant." Given his illness, Luigi had plenty of time to review his life decisions and question them.

But at the end of the day, it all comes down to some very simple things. He was a loving husband and father, a loyal and faithful friend, and a man truly engaged and enthusiastic in his pursuits. This brings to mind the lines written by Grantland Rice so many years ago,

    For when that One Great Scorer
    Comes
    To write against your name,
    He marks—not that you won or
    Lost–
    But how you played the game.

Nice game, Luigi.

And here are further thoughts from Gary Gold '67:

A reader of the above piece noted a few lacunae—namely, Luigi's activities as class secretary and with respect to class reunions. Joe Kelly '67 has commented on the former, and I can speak to the latter, since Luigi and I attended all of our reunions together. I particularly remember May 31, 2002. Luigi had been hospitalized from mid-March until the end of April but was determined to make it to reunion. That morning he and Lewise packed up the woody and drove up to the Valley—along with the injections to be administered by our class oncologists. In the afternoon the three of us (and John McBride) drove out to the old SAC bunker for a guided tour. Luigi gamboled up the winding staircases and through the quondam hallways, as I tried to keep up with him. The memory of that day, and of the courage and bonhomie of my oldest friend, will never fade.

Joe Kelly '67