The local paper, inside the cover, has news of a suicide of a Gunn student. They gave her name. I will call her A_.

I doubt I knew her. I’ve met a lot of Gunn families in recent months.

The valedictorian of my class, John Neumann, suicided in 1984. He was in New York. He jumped from a tall building, part of the justice department. Some said there was a message there. The site of his death, and his final judgment. The Times Tribune wrote three or four stories about John. Ruthann Richter wrote most of them. I was a source, or I encouraged her to write about him. I’m sure friends of the deceased think that the story is more complex and nuanced than what makes the papers, in the case of John, in 1984, and of A_ in 2024.

The first story about John was spot news that said a 20 year old man from Palo Alto had died in New York City. We heard about it because a reporter from a daily in New York called us. I say “we” because I had just complete a 10 week stint at the Peninsula Times Tribune. I knew most of the editors and reporters. Also, I knew Ruthann personally because of her friendship with Karen Kaplan, Mort Kaplan’s daughter. I also, if you excuse the sidebar, remember playing tennis with Mort Kaplan in Hawaii, and he reported that he had a side ache or back ache, which impacted his play; it was later revealed to be cancer and he died from it.

I called Ruthann and said that John was a friend of mine, a basketball teammate and was number 1 in our class. I may have added that he was known as the “4 Point Oh Burnout” because he had perfect scores despite smoking a lot of pot. I used to get high with John and: Tim Hart