I was deeply saddened to learn of Stevenson's death. We met in 1973, at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. I had just graduated from college a few months earlier and was working at Clark for a few months to make enough money to travel in Europe with my friend, Joan K., who was finishing her senior year at Clark. I had sublet a room in the same apartment Stevenson was living in and we even dated for a short while.

A few months later, Joan (who also dated Stevenson briefly a year earlier) and I went to Europe for six months, and then I moved to New Jersey to attend law school at Rutgers. Stevenson went to Mardi Gras for the first time that year and he and his friend stopped at my house in Haddonfield, NJ and encouraged me to accompany them to New Orleans. I felt that I couldn't afford to miss classes, so I didn't go with them. Stevenson, of course, was right-- thirty years later I remember nothing about my classes and I regret that I haven't ever been to New Orleans.

Stevenson and his friend,whose name I cannot remember , again dropped by on their return trip (back to Worcester) and brought me beads from Mardi Gras, which I still have today. I hadn't known what an important trip that had been for Stevenson-- how he fell in love with New Orleans, until now.

My deepest condolences to Stevenson's family and friends.