A Year Ago Today – COVID hit close

April 4, 2020. I had already lost a cousin to the pandemic, but I didn’t know that. And I didn’t know that cousin well. But on April 4 last year – it was a Friday – Ulises Castro died.

Castro was a Lehman College Peace Officer. He was assigned to our school – the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, for most terms over the last 16 years.

I spent hours talking talking to Castro when I stayed late -which was often. That was his shift. We were both strongly pro-union – he was a teamster, and that colored the conversations. But I recall him often digging not into who was right and who was wrong, but into the psychology behind people’s decisions. Castro often had an interesting angle.

My walks take me by campus, almost every day. And almost every day I am reminded of our loss. I glance up, foolishly, at the booth at Gate 8. But he is not there. And I know he is not in the high school…

Here’s what I wrote a year ago: https://jd2718.org/2020/04/07/in-memory/

Here’s the CUNY memorial page. Here’s the Teamster memorial page (I’d never seen such a young and trim photo!).

Here’s the smiling officer I remember: