I can’t think of Paul without thinking about other people. That’s not because this deeply caring guy reminds me of others and makes me think of them. It’s because if you had a conversation with Paul that’s what he loved to talk about. Others. People that impressed him, people that lifted spirits, created laughter, brought hope.
Paul played an essential role in seeing that Louise Ober got the recognition she deserved as a vital member of our class. During our Fiftieth Reunion, we skipped out one morning and drove to Lenox, to visit Louise’s 103-year-old mother and Louise’s brother. Paul knew Louise better than I. He regaled us with well-told stories. On the way back to Williamstown I asked him about his major statewide work on child abuse in California, the thirteen plays he wrote to help children, and his current work teaching high school drama, doing this at a time when a lot of us were cutting back. He could have boasted, but didn’t. He steadily turned the conversation back to the people he was seeing, their courage, their creativity, and to words about his terrific wife and son, Laurie and Nathan
With Paul, for all his brilliance and wit, things were never about him. They were about the rest of us and what, at our best, we can become. It makes me want to say, “Good friend, thank you!!"
Stephen Doughty
I can’t think of Paul without thinking about other people. That’s not because this deeply caring guy reminds me of others and makes me think of them. It’s because if you had a conversation with Paul that’s what he loved to talk about. Others. People that impressed him, people that lifted spirits, created laughter, brought hope.
Paul played an essential role in seeing that Louise Ober got the recognition she deserved as a vital member of our class. During our Fiftieth Reunion, we skipped out one morning and drove to Lenox, to visit Louise’s 103-year-old mother and Louise’s brother. Paul knew Louise better than I. He regaled us with well-told stories. On the way back to Williamstown I asked him about his major statewide work on child abuse in California, the thirteen plays he wrote to help children, and his current work teaching high school drama, doing this at a time when a lot of us were cutting back. He could have boasted, but didn’t. He steadily turned the conversation back to the people he was seeing, their courage, their creativity, and to words about his terrific wife and son, Laurie and Nathan
With Paul, for all his brilliance and wit, things were never about him. They were about the rest of us and what, at our best, we can become. It makes me want to say, “Good friend, thank you!!"