"The beautiful boy who is holding the monkey tenderly, lovingly. He was always that person. Always kind. He was that beautiful boy."
David was a very close friend of mine, a very special friend.
You know, this will be a logical remembrance, I hope. I talked to my son, it was on Friday, after my CS224 class, and... Alper. It was 7:30, it was 5:30 pm. I told him that it will be a logical talk. And he said "Yes, it should be logical, rather than sentimental."
So, I think I will be the person who is in his song: Logical Song. In the Logical Song there is a person: A reliable, dependable, a logical person. I hope I will be that person in my talk. I want to be that person.
Probably, this will be a disconnected talk. David used to come to my GE100, orientation, university orientation talks, and he would say "It was a good talk, but it was disconnected." So, probably this will be a disconnected talk again. And it will be semi-spontaneous. Spontaneous, but semi-spontaneous. In what sense? Since I have some notes. My notes are like topic sentences and I don't know what I will say. I will hear it with you.
First of all: The beautiful boy who is holding the monkey tenderly, lovingly. He was always that person. Always kind. He was that beautiful boy.
I met him in 1991. I was here at Bilkent University. There was this TOKTEN, United Nations supporting researchers etc. I gave this Hypertalk, HyperCard talk about connected information. And he came to my talk. It was... I checked the room. I remember the room, but I didn't remember the room number, it was EB103, EB103. I first saw him in that room. Then later, he also came to my METU talk. It was the same talk, and he gave me importance. Although it was the same talk, he came to my talk again. And it warmed my heart towards him. Beginning with that.
But probably I knew him earlier, since I know Güneş. Güneş and I, we are from the same neighborhood. The same mahalle: Yücetepe Mahallesi. And she was a junior student, I was ahead of her. I remember that day. I told her again, a couple of days ago. We were leaving the room, ODTÜ servis, not the room but the bus. Then coming down from DSİ to our mahalle, and talking with each other. So, I knew Güneş before I met David. So perhaps, I know him in that way too.
Now... We spent hundreds of hours together, hundreds of hours together. Why? We walked together. I love walking, he loved walking. He loved walking with me. And I loved walking with him. I would send him a Whatsapp message. Sundays, Saturdays, during week days, holidays: "10:30, Turkish time." I was always late. And he made it late at the end. I made him kind of Turkish at the same time. So... he was waiting there for me, smiling, "No problem," he would say. Always like that.
What did we talk during our talks? Many things... And there were several silent moments at the same time. Half and half. More silent than talk or sometimes more talk than being silent. Both of them.
We talked about our families: About my son, my wife, his wife, his daughter... Our classes: How we teach. And... the movies. The songs. Movie songs especially. I remember this one: This was a close one, about one and a half months ago. We were walking on East Campus, coming down like lojman number 100 or 101. I played him about 25 movie songs. Whistling, whistling. Our favorite was Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning, from Oliver! And My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, several several songs. I, I whistled him.
And... we would talk about the meaning of life: Is it meaningful or not meaningful, how to make it meaningful. He would talk about his father. His father's workshop. And the first program they wrote together with Chris, his brother, about the inventory, about the inventory system. And, there was a cottage behind their house, a kind of cottage. He would sit there and listen to LPs, long plays. We talked about LPs. LPs we shared. And, I bought a turntable a few years ago. I sent him a picture of it, playing a Tchaikovsky LP that I had 50 years ago.
And and and... Mersin Erdemli. He liked Mersin Erdemli, a lot. The ship, a lot. And his dormitory room, at the university; he mentioned about that.
Ideas he had... Mostly philosophical ideas. I didn't understand them, or sometimes I understood them. And I would ask him "Tell me about it again David." He would tell me about that idea again. And sometimes he made things very long. I told him "Cut it David, it's too long now." So he would cut it.
One, favorite song we shared: A Whiter Shade of Pale, A Whiter Shade of Pale. We loved both of them, loved a lot. And I told him "I understand all of the words, but I don't understand the song. It's a very sad song, but still I don't understand it."
Beatles, Murakami... Trees... The invading tree in Bilkent. You know that tree, it's everywhere. I hated those trees. He was still loving them. But I loved them during winter time. When they are naked, they are lovely. The other times I don't love them.
And what else... We would go to Burger King. We loved the garden over there. Or we would go to Simit Sarayı. Or we would go to this Music Building, then YÖK, then we would come to Starbucks. Sit there, drink our coffee, and drink our tea, and eat our simit.
And... (there are some words, not understandable) ... These are what, these are topic sentences. The things that I wanted to remember...
Odeon. Odeon was an important place for us. There was a bench across the Odeon. We would sit there, whether it is cold or not cold, whether windy or not windy, rainy or not rainy... We would sit there. A couple of minutes, or sometimes half an hour. We would continue there.
He made me angry several number of times. I was never able to make him angry. For example, we were teaching CS101. I think I taught that course with him a couple of times. He was asking... he was preparing questions impossible to answer to me. I banged my right fist on the round table in his office. Not figurative, but in the real sense. But, he wasn't angry, he wasn't angry.
And he was a perfectionist. Unfortunately, but he was a perfectionist. There is this Turkish saying: "A strong vinegar is not good for its cup." It was like that. He was trying to do the things the best way! But the best way is a very difficult way. But he tried to do that.
And another thing about him is that he would ask questions always: "Why, how new, what is new in it? What is new in it? Why?" Güneş said that he would go to rest room and he would still ask "Why?" He was that kind of person.
He was from Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is also the town of Charles Darwin. He didn't tell me that, I find it on... I found it on Wikipedia. So he had that mind, inquisitive mind. Always, always asking questions. Not, not stopping, always asking questions.
He had a flu in 2019, it was December. It was a very long flu. I remember it very well. It was from December till the middle of January, even the end of January. After that he never felt good. He was always having difficulty in terms of breathing. Always... And, once, this was, about, three weeks ago, he was wearing a watch; looking at his pulse rate. It was very irregular: It was going down, it was going up. But, I was expecting that he would be alright. He's very skinny, thin, he looks like an athlete, always. But it never happened, it never happened.
And things happened before my eyes. He was not good, and he was not getting good, and, I haven't done anything!
I think, at the end... (A logical talk, a logical talk...) He was that beautiful boy holding the monkey, tenderly. He was always that person. He was always that person.
He had a wonderful life.
And... my wife... my wife asked, "What did you do... what did you say each other when you saw each other last time?" It was before Meteksan, in front of Meteksan, and we met David Thornton there. Then... "What did you say to each other?" I said "See you, görüşürüz." He said "Görüşürüz." He said "See you."
It was the end.
David was a very close friend of mine, a special friend.
Thank you.