Ray Eads was renowned for his versatility.  First, like Carol Maxson, he too was a two-time winner of the coveted “most talented” award, for his virtuosity as a trumpet player.  (I know:  I played my cornet in his shadow for six years.)  Ray could not play the fastest—that accolade would have to go to Charlie Morgan—but he did have the fattest tone, as close to Harry James without being Harry James.

 But Ray was not only a musician:  He was also bright and athletic.  (I still remember him during recess in junior high, hanging from a high crossbar and, with imperceptible effort, snap his body to a straight-armed perch above the bar, and then twirl around the bar like a plastic acrobat spun on a stick—it was incredible.)  But perhaps most importantly—at least in the eyes of a post-pubescent teenager—Ray was lionized for his jaunty and mercurial social elegance among the opposite sex. He was fearless; he seemed to speak in a language that was replete with wry wit and well-mannered charm.  Yes, he was chronologically the same age as I, but at least three years my senior when it came to even the most timorous of amorous conquests.  (There were other guys in our class who were equally recklessly confident among girls—Jim Hull and Terry Wynia  come to mind—but Ray Eads was the king.) 

I will tell another story about Ray, with permission from its author, our classmate, George “Lee” Lewandowski.  In a sophomore year English class, the students were instructed to write a paper in which they imagined the upshot of waking up one morning in the skin of another person.  The teacher, the venerable Mr. Siebert, expected to see papers about such luminaries as John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Albert Einstein.  Lee Lewandowski, however, wrote:  “I have always wanted to awaken one morning as Ray Eads.”  Mr. Siebert was incensed.  Lee was nonplussed.  Why should his teacher be so outraged?  After all, Ray Eads had it all:  intellect, talent, athletic process, and, especially, unequivocally, irrepressibly, an effortless facility with GIRLS.  And get this:  Lee was not in any way satirical; he was dead serious.  (As a footnote, although Lee earned a “D” for his temerarious essay, he still remembers Mr. Siebert as one of the finest teachers of his recalcitrant educational career.)

So, what became of this dapper, devil-may-care bon vivant?  Ray Eads became (and still is) a financial consultant and planner.  I know; he was for a time my financial planner; I used to make him do a kip-up before launching into the next wealth-planning strategy.