You’ve been a source of wisdom and knowledge and invaluable advice for about as long as I can remember. Not this time …

Were this the passing of any other notable of the many communities whose engine you were, you’d be at the forefront of the honoring and the laying to rest. You, the glue, would be there to organize and to guide us. But now we, your many kin and satellites, look to your imagined example to help us remember, discover, and honor you. I remember a lonely fall evening long ago, riding my bicycle the length of Somerville to Needham to talk to you about something now long forgotten. And though I knew of the key in the can, finding you out, I waited ‘til you returned, hours on your silent porch in the gathering dusk. With infinite patience – your friendship and your counsel were that valuable. Now there’s no one I want more to talk to of you - than you ...

Many will laud your countless skills and breathlessly recount their personal “Alan stories”. To feel you now, though, I look to those things that held you in their thrall. And a great many things stirred your beautiful soul:

the communal fireplace gathering for intimate storytelling that is theatre;

the arcane world of the electron and its many works, which no one understood like you;

the iron-wheeled giants and the men who drove them down the world’s railways;

the scintillating words of a certain poet son of Wales;

the captive trials of penguin love;

the simple purring of a cat.

And of course, your friends - your many, many friends. Your passion, zeal and joy in all you engaged stirred us who knew you. You came to and held all you met with such respect we could not but return that regard, and for it hold you in even greater esteem. What you gave, and what you taught us, be that skills or love, will be with us forever. Curiosity, wit and excellence glinted in your eyes, and was passed on to those lucky enough to count themselves among your friends. Many there are, and I know that to a one all would second me when I say that I count your friendship one of my life’s greatest honors.

But now the whistles of the great steam locomotives are silent, the electric trolley cars parked at station’s end. Even the furtive dippos and somber penguins stand in bowed-head silence, the void of your absence too vast for comprehension. And so the curtain kisses the stage floor a final time – but hold the houselights, and the applause awhile; a thousand aching hearts will hold their breath a moment more. And so we say some words to the close and holy darkness, but it is you who sleeps. Rest well, my friend. We hold you as we knew you; talent & humor incarnate, with that unique stance, the ebullient flyaway hair, and that wide, shy, sparkling grin. You are greatly missed.