John C's Ride in Honor of Clark Henley and Tom Gardner

3 Mar 2008
To the Great Cate of '68!

I decided a number of months ago to challenge myself physically while at the same time honoring two of my very best friends in life who died from AIDS—our classmate Clark Henley and a mutual friend of his and mine, Tom Gardner. I have a silly photograph of my kindergarten class, and Clark and Tom and I are all there.

I think back to the time you and Clark and I shared at Cate. Both in Lido and High House West, Clark and I had adjacent rooms, and our heads were up against those paper-thin walls. We talked every night when I wasn't out in the hall doing exercises under John Jordan's tutelage or racing out to the third field to get a leaf from some plant and beat my co-conspirator back. A few of you from the freshman year would even remember "Fish's Funeral," with a lengthy procession/cortege with Clark carrying his dead goldfish on a pillow as we marched out to the burial grounds. Michael Ladner presided, I believe.

I remember when Clark decided to run away from Cate. We all got very excited, and raised a few hundred dollars to finance him within a few minutes. I walked with him down to 101. I remember him standing on the on-ramp there at Casitas Pass Road, his thumb out to flag a ride. I watched until he got into a car, headed for LA.

Clark and I remained very close through his time at Athenian School, where they had a whole lot more fun with their teachers late at night than we did! Then Boston University, and when I moved back to SF after my first job out of school, we were thick as thieves going to midnight shows at the Nickelodeon. He was writing and illustrating children's books, or telling me about his outrageous sartorial choices for parties (and his choice of parties!). We talked about his day-long walks around the city of San Francisco—I mean every day, from Noon until about 9pm, when the real fun started. Clark was somewhere between legendary and notorious in this city.

When he got sick, things were alternately very tough or in virtual remission. I tried to be a great friend to him during these very difficult times, and we actually became even closer.

I miss him! I'm grateful for what was, and yet I think of what might yet have been, and what Clark could have added to the world.

So my ride is to honor Clark and my other friend Tom, and to support the SF AIDS Foundation. I hope you'll click on the link to my website and pledge—honoring Clark or Tom (you can use a credit card). Thanks very much!

Here's my home page; click on it or you may need to copy it up into your browser

www.aidslifecycle.org/2169

If you would rather write a check, this other link takes you to the form. Please make sure you put down my participant number, #2169. Thanks!

www.aidslifecycle.org/donate/index.cfm?addl=y&CFID=1476548&CFTOKEN=74055732

I hope you'll raise a glass to Clark at the reunion!

All the best,

John