John and I grew up across the street from one another on the upper Westside of Manhattan. We actually met and discovered this slimmest of connections one evening in 1981, when we were both back in our old neighborhoods for a small conference on the environment (John was a presenter), and found ourselves seated next to one another at a dinner in the undercroft of the Synod House on the grounds of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. When I mentioned that I had grown up on the Cathedral grounds, my father having been the headmaster of the Choir School, he gave me an intense, fiery look. “My best friend went off to that school; he disappeared through those iron gates and I never saw him again!” Clearly the nine year old John was still carrying strong feelings about that long ago unexpected separation—his first “abduction” experience.
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