Thinking About John Farrell
Today a number of bloggers are posting remembrances of the victims of 9/11. I knew one person who died that day – John Farrell. When I looked up the posts about him, both had the familiar picture of John and his cute little niece, and both identified the niece as his daughter. One mentioned his wife although he was not married. I know that the bloggers were using their tribute to him as a jumping off point for their own stories of 9/11, and I don’t have a problem with that. But since they described his life wrong, I feel like he wasn’t really being remembered, so I’m doing it myself, in my patented lame ass fashion.
John Farrell was a year behind me in college, but he was assigned to the same hallway of the dorm that housed all of the guys that my friends and I dated/hated and hung out with. I met him and his friend Jim, and they quickly became part of the crowd. They were memorable and fun to be around just because of their New York-ness - the accent, the animation, the inexplicable devotion to their sports teams. We were friendly acquaintances, and whenever we passed each other in the hall or met up at a party we would smile and say hello, make a little small talk and drift back to our friends. When I think of John, he is always standing in that wide, dingy hallway wearing a pair of sweatpants and he's got a big smile on his face under the remnants of bed head. We never had a long conversation or even a drunken heart-to-heart, but he was never too deeply engrossed in a heated debate about New York sports team to do a reverse nod (chin up instead of down) and say “Hey, Shannon,” with that unmistakable New York accent and smile.
By 2001, I hadn’t seen John in 10 or 11 years, and since we were not in the same reunion class, I might never have seen him again. But I feel sad that he is not out there, that I’ll never hear that one of my NYC friends ran into him at a bar or read about his wedding in the alumni news. After 9/11, I never really said much about John, because I felt like people might think I was stealing some of the sadness that wasn’t mine. We weren’t close friends, but after thinking it over for a while, we did have a connection. We didn’t know each other well, but we wished each other well. It’s good to have people on the friendly fringes, people who don’t know all your crap, people with whom you always have a positive encounter, even if it’s just a nod and a little banter. So this post is just my reverse nod and a “Hey, John,” from someone who does remember exactly the kind of person we lost on 9/11. To read more about John Farrell, try this or this.
John Farrell was a year behind me in college, but he was assigned to the same hallway of the dorm that housed all of the guys that my friends and I dated/hated and hung out with. I met him and his friend Jim, and they quickly became part of the crowd. They were memorable and fun to be around just because of their New York-ness - the accent, the animation, the inexplicable devotion to their sports teams. We were friendly acquaintances, and whenever we passed each other in the hall or met up at a party we would smile and say hello, make a little small talk and drift back to our friends. When I think of John, he is always standing in that wide, dingy hallway wearing a pair of sweatpants and he's got a big smile on his face under the remnants of bed head. We never had a long conversation or even a drunken heart-to-heart, but he was never too deeply engrossed in a heated debate about New York sports team to do a reverse nod (chin up instead of down) and say “Hey, Shannon,” with that unmistakable New York accent and smile.
By 2001, I hadn’t seen John in 10 or 11 years, and since we were not in the same reunion class, I might never have seen him again. But I feel sad that he is not out there, that I’ll never hear that one of my NYC friends ran into him at a bar or read about his wedding in the alumni news. After 9/11, I never really said much about John, because I felt like people might think I was stealing some of the sadness that wasn’t mine. We weren’t close friends, but after thinking it over for a while, we did have a connection. We didn’t know each other well, but we wished each other well. It’s good to have people on the friendly fringes, people who don’t know all your crap, people with whom you always have a positive encounter, even if it’s just a nod and a little banter. So this post is just my reverse nod and a “Hey, John,” from someone who does remember exactly the kind of person we lost on 9/11. To read more about John Farrell, try this or this.
posted by Shannon at 10:19 PM
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