Clyde Young Obituary

Michael A. Burke '61 posted a photo:

My best friend in the Class of 1961 was Clyde Young, another only child
living with idiosyncratic parents, he on Clinton St. and I in a rented duplex
on Kent St. (during my one year stay in Rome), both close to the Rome Free
Academy school building on Turin St. He was very bright, well read, sarcastic,
wryly humorous, and a yet-to-come-out gay man. (I was not and didn't care.)
His favorite expressions were "Wie Schade" (German for "What a Pity/Shame"
and "Suguwa-Toho"(Japanese for "cheesy" or "low class"). At RFA, Clyde was
in Press Club, Historical Club, Future Teachers Club, and Harlequins Club,
none of which I was involved in. Clyde was not an engineering type, but he
liked to hang out with me in my basement electronics workshop where we'd
talk about anything and everything and listened to music and comedy on my
home-made stereo record player.

Clyde and I parted ways in the Fall. Clyde had also won a Regents Scholarship
and was off to Houghton College, a private, Christian, liberal arts, coed college
in Houghton NY, a 2.5 sq-mi hamlet in The Town of Caneadea, Allegany County,
in SW New York State (north of the border with Pennsylvania) located on the
west bank of the Genesee River. I was off to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
Troy, NY to start as a Physics major. Our paths would cross again in the future.

I was also a casual friend of Clyde's good friend, James DeSantis, who was
also in the RFA Class of 1961 and who graduated with us. I seem to
remember that Jim attended Syracuse University majoring in Business.

I settled in the capital area (Albany) for the next decade, and my path would
sporadically cross Clyde's. We were cordial, but clearly had both moved on
from the friendship. I later heard through a third party (don't remember who)
that Clyde had been making some major house repairs alone and had been
killed in an accidental ceiling collapse. I wept. For all his idiosyncratic ways
Clyde was a really good soul, and, if there is a heaven, he deserves front row
center.

Michael A. Burke, RFA Class of 1961