Anniversary lunch

John Nissen was a dear friend for many years, almost like a younger brother for me. I first met John at Lawrence University in 1970 when I became the dean of men and he became my assistant, and Director of financial aid. He came out east when we did in 1973, and he worked at some of the same places that I did out here, e.g. Windham College and the School for International Training. I married him and his wife Mary, we visited them in both Geneva and Paris when they were working overseas - we just did a lot of things together. John got prostate cancer back around 2010 which then metastasized, and he died October, 2013. Wednesday was the eighth anniversary of his death and we had lunch with Mary, and we were also joined by Ann Janeway who is someone Mary and I have both known for many years. We had planned to eat at Dot's restaurant in Wilmington, but it turned out to be closed on Wednesday. But we found another place nearby in West Dover, which was called Betsy's Dot's in Dover. Here we are:

Ellen, Ann and Mary

Betsy's Dot's at Dover**************************************************** I gave Mary a little album of photos of John from across the years -I went through boxes of photos and pulled out everything with John in it. It was a nice album of about 25 photos, many of which she had not seen before. It was an album that had an oval window in the cover that made the first photo in the album a cover photo. It was a picture of John at a time in his life when he had let his hair and. beard grow to the extent that he looked like a guru:

John Nissen******************************************************* When Ann Janeway saw it, she remarked that John looked a lot like Ram Dass - she was just reading a book about Ram Dass and the cover photo was very similar. When we took Ann home, she showed us the book:

Ann Janeway and the Ram Dass book.******* Here is a nice picture of Mary, John and me - which was also a part of the album, plus one of me and John wearing new berets we had gotten when we were visiting in France at the time of the anniversary of the French Revolution.

John and me in our berets

Mary, me and John.