August 19, 2013 – EXIT ONLY

This boy came to our town as a five-foot tall freshman in high school. He was a scholar in our local chapter of the ABC Program. Such a journey!

Back at the start of his time here I used to bring him over to Harvard for to bone up on his Italian with my nephew Matt. Matt was a freshman there at the time but time passed as time will do.

Matt is now a senior at Harvard – and as of yesterday Rayvoughn was a freshman at the University of New Hampshire where he will study Computer Science.

Even at 14, Ray was good with computers. Shortly after he arrived, he was already the go-to guy at the ABC House for PC issues.

He networked all the computers and set up the wireless printer. And anytime anybody got a new Smart Phone – and we all know the Smart Phones are smarter than we are – Ray had it set and synched it up in a matter of minutes.

I felt lucky. As a volunteer and then the head of the Student Life , I got to see him all the time, starting when he was just over 5 feet tall and stood up at the big Fundraising Dinner and all unbidden said what it meant to him to be part of this wonderful program.

I remember when he began wrestling and found out he was good at it.

That was the same time of year he wrote his History paper on the symbolic import of the Brooklyn Bridge in the years just after the ruinous War Between the States. I still have a video clip I made of him discovering all the material .

But time keeps moving; we all know that. He began working for PC Quick Help and grew almost a foot and graduated from Winchester High School last June, making both his dad and his mom and the host family who sheltered him for four years very proud.

both as a 15-year old…

…and as an 18-year-old

And yesterday it was my privilege to bring him to college.

And yesterday it was my privilege to bring him to college. Four trips up those stairs and my car, whcih at 10 am that packed to the gills, by 2:00 was once again empty.