friends

Jay recently moved from the metro DC area not far from where he grew up
and has lived all of his 'young' life, to Phoenix, AZ where he is now working as
a Flight Attendant for Southwest Airlines.

He earned a BS degree in Mathematics from the prestigious College of
William and Mary in 1988 after 4 exciting years of school & typical collegiate
antics !!!

I met him in Williamsburg in 1985, where I had moved the year before to
open a KINKO's location across from Sorority Row on Prince George Street,
on the edge of the W&M campus.

I also met two other close friends around this same time, both of whom had
connections or ties to Jay -
Beth May and Keith Burrus

Jay was a gymnast at W&M and I had sort of "adopted" the W&M Gymnastics
team as a sponsor by printing all of their programs/rosters for home meets
free of charge at my KINKO's store [ I was on the Men's Gymnastics Club
team at Virginia Tech during my own college days, and it has always been my
favorite Olympic sporting event ]. Jay's specialty was the Floor Exercise and
he held the freshman 'high score' record for many years - man, this boy can
really flip, twist, and fly !!!

About this same time I met and became friends with a professor at W&M who
used my KINKO's store a lot, Dr. George D. Greenia. George was the
faculty sponsor of the Gay Student Union at W&M and also held a
confidential/anonymous group session on Monday nights at the local
Catholic Church near W&M's campus.

I became very involved in this Monday night group, assisting George with the
sessions whenever I could - I even took over the group for George one
semester when he went on a teaching sabbatical to Spain ( George is a tenured
Professor of Foreign Languages at W&M - teaching several Spanish courses ).
Later, I became the adult community leader assisting the gay student group
at W&M which had changed its' name to Alternatives.

Through these three activities I came to meet and know Jay very well and he
quickly became my closest and dearest friend { which he has
remained these 17+ years }. We have shared several lifetimes' worth of
memories and good times ( as well as "been there" for one another through
a few rough patches too ).

I would trust him with my very life and would do anything for him - and know
in my heart he feels the same !!! This is one of the greatest sources of my
strength and purpose in life, and the most powerful and wonderful feeling
imaginable - I hope & pray that everyone has this in their own life as there is
nothing more precious or important . . .

When Jay graduated from W&M and returned to the Washington, DC, area to
live and work, he and others were very adamant that I find work and move to
DC - which I did in 1989 when I took a job as Editor-in-Chief of Lambda
Rising Bookstores' publications division.