John died after our 20th reunion, apparently in a conflict over drugs in Mexico. I remember John well, in Junior and Senior High School. In Mr. Bateman's wood shop class he had me puzzled why after 15 minutes, he was unable to get his drill to make a hole in a piece of wood. He had turned the drill the wrong way. In tenth grade, he checked one of my papers which the teacher asked us to correct in class. When he returned it to me, there was a neat drawing on my paper with a box indicating my score, and a big check on it, with the words "checked by Salter. "

I last talked to him at some length at the first reunion we had in December 1962 that Kim Barrett had arranged at the Piedmont Community Center. He was on leave from the Marine Corps after service in Vietnam and his hair was uncharacteristically short. The Piedmonter reported that John had been the only survivor in three different encounters with the Viet Congo He described to me seeing a bunch of young men with eyes round from fright,

After leaving the Marines, he went back to various offbeat occupations including being an astrologer.