To My Friend Kent St. John

Kentski, you have been such a wonderful friend, ever since our first party at Essie’s house in Edgartown, not because you brought great wine and sushi, but because you brought yourself, and you are such a gracious person, full of love for the world and for humanity, as anyone can see in your stories, some of which it had been my privilege to edit.

It is a body of work which speaks for itself — stories that go beyond international travel to the realm of international understanding which is, in the last analysis, the hope of the world.

I have just received your Ethiopia story, and it is more of the same. This is precisely what GoNOMAD is all about, the factor which makes it a pleasure to come to work every day.

Every reader, every traveler, is one more person who understands that ‘unamerican’ is not a bad word and that the USA needs the world far more than the world needs the USA.

I’m not eulogizing you, my friend, because I know we’ll be working together for many years to come. I just thought this might be a good time to say, this once, those things which usually go without saying.