A little over a month ago, Amherst College held a remembrance service for Gerald Penny, the member of the Class of 1977 who died while taking a swimming test during his first year ... his first month ... at Amherst College on September 12, 1973. College Remembers Gerald Penny ’77 (amherststudent.com) This memorial service was a formal affair and was held in, I believe, Chapin Chapel, in Chapel Hall, the location where the black students typically gather twice a semester for a Christian church service. Notable about the service held in September was that it appears that only two people who actually knew Gerald were in attendance. One was Bob Bellinger, a fellow member of the Class of 1977, and the other was the poet Sonia Sanchez who was a professor at Amherst at the time of Gerald's death in 1973. I noted with appreciation the location, the formality and structure of the remembrance service on September 12, 2023 and found myself, self-consciously, comparing it to the one I conduc