Deceased March 17, 1993

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In Memory

Following several bouts with pneumonia, but otherwise seemingly healthy to many who knew him, Richard Davis slipped gently out of life this March, as gently and as serenely as he tried to live it. Richard’s route to Amherst was circuitous. Upon graduation from Regis High School in New York, he attended another Jesuit institution, Holy Cross, before transferring in his junior year to major in English at Amherst.

Much about Richard was childlike: he was trusting, generous, forever wondering. Where others saw the humdrum and commonplace in life, Richard found clues to life’s mysteries, linking details that illumine our living of it. Films he enjoyed—and this before the days of videotapes—he would watch 20 or 30 times, closely weaving in his mind’s eye a multi-layered tapestry of interpretation, often more compelling for its truthfulness about life than the film itself. He had, also, a light sense of humor, ironic but never hurtful. In our class’s yearbook, for example, he listed swimming, winter track relays and wrestling as his sports, yet it’s doubtful that he ever satisfied Amherst’s swimming requirement—Dean Swartzbaugh was still providing him with private lessons at the end of senior year, and I know for certain that he was never on a team. I remember, too, Richard trying to decide for the dean’s sake (read: sanity) whether he suffered from aquaphobia or hydrophobia—Richard was skillful in Greek and Latin and also recognized by the French government for his French. His playful sense of irony also extended to summer jobs: a card-carrying member of the Maritime Union, Richard delighted in the paradox of crossing oceans he couldn’t swim.

After Amherst Richard studied film in London, taught high school in the northeast and California and eventually settled into a successful career in marketing where his continuing wonderment, bemusement and fascination with human behavior found rich expression.

On the steps of the Frost Library at the end of our senior year, as the ceremonial wine cup was about to be passed to him, Richard looked heavenward, all seriousness, and implored, “Lord, let this cup pass from me.” We laughed heartily then … and so I now await, for when we meet again, Richard’s gently jestful toast to the cup’s contents.

Richard A. Kelly ’67