Richard Whinery Memorial page

For Dick from Dave Linke read by Jim Moss at the gathering at Ahdel Chadwicks' home

I am unable to join you, personally, today, in remembering and honoring Dick Whinery; however, I have sent along this message and I thank Jim Moss for sharing it with you.

Dick Whinery was a friend I met in the early 1960’s. He was one of many real characters I worked with at the Dallas Juvenile Home. My entire life has been very favorably influenced by the hours I spent with Dick and the other energetic DJH worker / students. The intelligence, hard work, and enthusiasm of Dick and of the others have greatly enhanced a life I am enjoying very much.

A lot of my joy from those years comes from hours of inspiring conversation with Dick. His sparkling wit and acidic observations about nearly everything in life brightened the hours we shared and filled the air with laughter.

I will miss Dick and am warmed by the thoughts of many fine times shared.

If Dick could comment on the other thing I want to say, he would probably observe the coming words are “banal, clichéd, overworked, and seriously timeworn” because John Donne’s thoughts have been spoken many times at funerals and memorials. I would agree with Dick, and we would laugh and have a drink or two … and then I would still say them anyway because they are in my heart as I remember so fondly my old friend … Dick Whinery.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

-----------------John Donne