There’s a pair of well-used, dusty old hiking boots and two tattered bouquets where the Paseo del Nordest Bike Trail crosses Commanche Rd. midway between home and my work. I didn’t know Roy Sekreta, who died there Monday night. But I stopped and cried after I rode past the little shrine today. There’s something so beautiful about the childlike freedom of being out on a bike. But when a bike and a car end up in the same place at the same time….
jfleck at inkstain
A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico
Even though we didn’t see each other much over the past 20 years, I can honestly say that Roy was the best friend I ever had. We were good friends who met at Quaker youth conferences and lived in Brooklyn at the same time for a few years in the late 80s. Roy once saved my life, risking his own to fend off a gang of kids in Prospect Park. He was the best kind of people and he will be missed by many.
I don’t know why it helps to write on this strangers blog, or thingee or whatever this unfamiliar medium is. It just does. I have no other obvious way to express myself just now about Roy. I hate that hes not out there somewhere anymore. I hate that part of my history is gone from this earth, AGAIN, that people die and it doesn’t get easier. I feel so badly that his eccentric, amazing, unbelievably generous family has to deal with this awful loss. Al you are right, he was one of a kind.