Death of a Friend

Last week I conducted business, I had fun at Mardi Gras with family, old friends, new friends, I ate food, I spent money I shouldn't have, I asked out a girl who turned out to be engaged, and the whole time I had no idea that on Saturday, Feb. 13 my friend and former employer had been killed while walking alone after Endymion. This man was my first real boss. He took me in when I couldn't get a job anywhere, when I was just a dumb kid who wanted a cool summer job in an art store. And then, seeing that I was no good at being a salesman, he put me to work building shelves and patching holes in the antique building. Firing me was never an option, even though he could have saved money by doing so because sales are always lower in the summer. I don't enjoy Uptown New Orleans as much as I used to: too many college kids living transient lives, here for the semester, gone for the summer, one batch replacing another every fall.
John Ward made Uptown feel like a real neighborhood, simply by deciding to always be there, and making us the better for it. Now that he's gone, somehow that permanence persists.

Pulitzer winner Chris Rose has some words about John as well:
http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A69701
(copy and paste, for some reason it won't let me link)