David Koppenhaver

Rick Neff and I cut grass together at Ferncliff Cemetery. Among other experiences that I can only attribute to the absence of questioning in high school males:
• We enjoyed mower races, sitting on top of our push mowers and flying down the hills absent any ability to steer.
• We had our first (and my last) taste of chewing tobacco at the urging of one of the full-time guys.
• Possibly best, one rainy day at the cemetery we were sent home early in the afternoon. Rick drove us in his (I'm remembering a Dodge Dart but who knows?) to the Mall Cinemas where we caught a matinee showing of Jack Nicholson in "The Last Detail" with 4 other people. On the way home, we took the back way down those country roads, and, coming to a raised railroad crossing, he accelerated rather than slowing down. We experienced flight in the absence of an airplane. As we landed on the other side of the tracks, my head hit the ceiling, and my knees hit the windshield. We are both living proof that luck is a more powerful force than Darwin's notion of survival of the fittest.