In loving memory of Sasha Clapper

Last Friday night, my dear friend Sasha Clapper was killed while riding his motorcycle. My friend Ellen called me on Sunday morning to let me know. Although I heard her say the words, and I knew what she said was true, it was somehow unreal to me for several hours. Then, suddenly, sitting at my desk in my lab, I was flooded with the sad reality of there being no more Sasha. I burst into tears and tried to make sense of it. I read the news article about him. It was very terse and implied that speed was a factor in the accident. I believe this. I have ridden on the back of the motorcycle while Sasha was driving and I know that he doesn't drive like a grandma. Unfortunately, there were a couple of people posting horrible comments about motorcyclists at the end of the article. It was so hard to read them. Thankfully, the comment moderator has removed them. On another forum for motorcyclists, several mentioned the spot were he crashed to be very dangerous due to a 4" bump in the road. Several mentioned almost losing control there...

There is a nice obituary here.

I met Sasha in high school, NCSSM. Oh, he was crazy and fun. He tended to be a bit too crazy for me and, in fact, got in some serious trouble at school. We hung out in the same crowd, but we weren't terribly close. Fast forward to college... I attended UNC for a time. My dorm roommate decided to live with her boyfriend instead of in the dorm, so I had a double room all to myself. At the time, Sasha was homeless, so I let him stay in the extra bed. I remember him having to break into the dorm by climbing the outside wall to get in when he came in after they locked the doors. I also remember combing out his dread locks (boy that took a lot of time and conditioner!) and braiding his hair into many, many braids. He wore his hair like that for a long time.

The following summer, I lived in an apartment in Chapel Hill with little Alex. Sasha and I were still just friends for a long time, until one friend (Susan) pointed out that we were in love. For some reason, I didn't realize it until she said it. After that, we were inseparable. I just remembered that I let Sasha pierce my belly button with a safety pin that summer! Oh, man, what was I thinking!

The next fall, Sasha went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon. I was so sad, but it is what he wanted to do. I stayed in Chapel Hill and worked and saved up my money. I was pretty miserable. In December, I made plans to move to Oregon to be with him. Looking back, I'm not completely sure he wanted me to come out, but, well, he didn't communicate that clearly and I did. I lived in his dorm room with him and ate whatever we could get our hands on. Mostly, we lived on potatoes. Our favorite was potato soup. I still have a burn on my hand from some soup popping out of the pot and landing on it. Oh, that hurt. Oh, yeah. We also used to eat free pizza. Dominoes had a stupid guarantee that if you weren't completely satisfied, you could get your money back, no questions. Seriously, how stupid is that?! Being quite young, we didn't really realize how unscrupulous our actions were, and we ate a LOT of free pizza.

The free pizza is what led to my tattoo, believe it or not. After the local Dominoes figured out that we were living on unsatisfactory free pizza, they started getting slower and slower at delivering our refunds. One night, there was some terrific party to go to. Of course, now I don't remember what was so terrific about it. Anyway, Sasha and Mike decided to leave me to wait for the refund and took off to the party. I waited for hours and got pretty mad. Somehow I ended up talking to Chiara who convinced me that what we needed were tattoos. Sasha had been saving up money for a tattoo of his own, and I was so mad that I took his tattoo money and hopped in the car with Chiara. When we arrived at the tattoo parlor, I studied the wall and said, "I want that one!" I pointed at an eye of Horus. Chiara got a black panther on her back. I got the eye on my right arm. When Sasha finally got home from the party, he was taken aback that I had done what I had done, but wasn't particularly mad that I had taken his money.

That spring break, we went on a bike ride to the Oregon coast, down the coast, and back to Portland. We didn't plan terribly well, but it was an adventure. We went with Mike and had a 2-man tent for the 3 of us! We had some milk crates strapped to the back of our bikes for our gear and food. The first night, we slept in a farmer's field. That was weird. The next night, we slept in a homeless shelter in Tillamook. We had planed to stay in the youth hostel, but it wasn't open for the season yet. Luckily, there aren't too many homeless people in Tillamook, so they had beds for us and we even got to do our laundry. The laundry was a nice perk since we had gotten rained on heavily on the trip from the farmer's field to Tillamook. I think that shelter must be one of the nicest in the US. It was a house, so it didn't have an institutional feel. We were allowed to cook what we wanted in the kitchen and watch TV in the living room. The next day, we headed down the coast, and ended up at Cape Lookout. There was a hiker/biker campground there, so we pitched our tent and stayed the night. During the night, some raccoons got into our gear and ate our food. We woke up HUNGRY! We tried to get a pizza place in Tillamook to deliver to us, since it was only about 10 miles away, but they wouldn't. I figure we had ruined our pizza karma with the Dominoes scam, so we deserved it. I don't remember what we ate, but obviously, we survived somehow. We went down the coast to Lincoln City and then headed back. I remember Sasha got a cold on the trip and had a runny nose. Once or twice while was biking behind him, he blew his nose "cowboy style". I was mad about the boogers flying back at me. He said sorry, genuinely seeming to not realize that boogers flying would be a consequence of the blow. Silly Sasha.

Oh, if I wrote of all the adventures we had and my memories of him, I would never stop writing:
- donuts in the camaro at Fish Lake
- following Phish and shouting Free Bird until one day they played it!
- the purple suede pants he wanted so bad and I worked so hard to save up for, and then didn't wear after he got them
- the stinky sweat socks he would wear for days even though he had other socks, but liked the look of the stinky ones
- we used to call him "Feets Clapper" because he was accident prone
- living in the basement of the Dustbin and listening to our crazy house mate talk to himself in the night (creepy!)
- making friends with the folks in the FBI house who turned out to be some of my best friends in the whole world
- outdoor living room, kegerator, and bee bee gun complete with targets including a TV, beer bottles, Sasha's leg on the roof of the Dustbin, the street lamp
- The PFM raid
- the many conversations where Sasha tried to convince me we should live in a cardboard box
- the Renn Fayre where ... well, maybe I won't write this one in case family should read it ... it was all about star trek
- a trip to new hampshire to visit Chiara where I told him he was driving too fast in the snow, and annoyed him to the point that he was very mad, so I shut up, then he slid in the snow and hit a rail, and was mad at me because I didn't I tell him he was going too fast :)
- once he accidentally punched himself in the face while fixing his motorcycle
- scrounging for food at the Reed cafeteria
- oh, the time I smashed up stuff on his motorcycle because he made me mad (let's just say he didn't view monogamy in the same way I did)
- the collage in the kitchen of the FBI house
- many nights of pool playing in the Reed pool hall
- a naked softball tournament
- many bike rides
- a fun trip to Mt. Tabor
- almost getting married at the 24 hour church of Elvis (in the eyes of Elvis, not of the state) but didn't because it was closed!

Sasha was Sasha and I was Katie. We worked well for a while, but I was always too safe and straight for him. He needed a woman with a spirit that was free like his. I could tell he wasn't happy and that was making me unhappy. We amicably parted ways in our early 20's and went our separate directions. Over the years, I ran into him now and again and got to hear of his adventures, crazy and wild. I could tell he thought my life was so boring, and he often chided me about it. That's okay, we were both happy.

Sasha, you are loved and you are missed. You touched my life and I am better for it. I wish I had a recording of the first Free Bird we heard Phish play. And even though it's very cliche...

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can't change.
But please don't take it badly,
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.