Deceased July 2, 2016
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In Memory
David Longshore, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and proud member of our class, passed away on July 2 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
I’m not sure David and I ever actually spoke, but his totally original, outsize flair was impossible not to appreciate in my years at Amherst. Older by a decade than most of us, he had arrived fearlessly at a personality before he got here. I picture him sweeping into Valentine or talking animatedly in the Frost Library foyer, surrounded by friends. A dazzling presence, with old-world manners and a friendly air of semi-aristocratic world weariness. He would have been right at home in Walter Pater’s Oxford.
It was only later that I learned just how extraordinary David was. A polymath who knew everything about natural disasters, naval history, historic bridges, the history of pirates and countless other topics, David published a classic book that I encourage everyone to find: Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones. He also published dozens of horror and science fiction stories, as well as a 20-part haiku commemorating the sinking of the Titanic by describing each of its 20 lifeboats. The poem appeared on the “City Room” blog of The New York Times, under the nom de plume “Lifeboat No. 6,” which happened to be the boat that carried the legendary “Unsinkable” Molly Brown to safety. In his spare time, he made beautiful, strange assemblages, served as the bridge historian for the New York City Department of Transportation and taught at a number of colleges and universities. Until 2014 he served as press secretary for the New York State Assembly.
I think of John Berryman’s lines at the end of his elegy for Robert Frost: “For a while here we possessed/an unusual man.” Rest in Peace, David. You were a cyclone.
Dan Chiasson ’93