Tuesday, April 30, 2019
I knew Avery well, a long time ago. We "went together" our sophomore, junior, and senior years at Chapel Hill, where because of Avery, I enjoyed an unparalleled social life at the DKE house with his best buddies, Ben Phillips and Steve Lucie, and secret parties at the Lodge. He called me "Roo" or "Katie Roo."
After graduation, we lived together in Washington, DC for two years while Avery worked for a famous Washington lawyer and power-broker, "Tommy the Cork" Corcoran at Corcoran, Foley, Youngman & Rowe. As everyone knows, Avery was enormously witty and funny and used to make me laugh till it hurt with his "impressions" of people--especially the Boston Irish accent of Tommy the Cork, with all the famous gestures.
I still laugh today when I remember how he used to fool my mother over the phone pretending to be a Mexican laborer asking if she had any work for him. Or a newly arrived immigrant from Bombay who was looking for a good bed and breakfast. He was not only a great prankster, he was a comic genius.
Then, he entered Georgetown Law School with an intellectual passion that made me feel peripheral. As the old saying goes, "law school shapes your thinking by limiting it," and we would argue about issues such as "search and seizure." After two years of Avery's steadfast devotion to the rule of law, I had had enough and moved to Paris. I thought he would be there for me when I returned, but he wasn't. He had entered a whole new world, but I miss him to this day. There has never been a moment when I haven't thought of Avery as one of the smartest, kindest, most genuinely honest people I've known. He was every bit a man, but with no machismo.
I regret how we parted ways and what I lost by not staying in touch. And I am sad for the loss of his family and friends, all of whom he loved a great deal. Part of my heart goes with him.
