It is hard to believe that Richard has left us. I babysat all of the Roger children. Our families had many fun times together. Richard was always happy and smiling. He was a scholor even when he was little. We had planned to get together this summer when I came home. Prayers and love to the family.

Still thinking often of Richard. Still inspired by his example.

I miss you so very much...DB

Heart felt prayers

Hanover High School Class of 1976 is having our 40th reunion on 8/27/16. Thinking of you Richard. We will be sharing memories and stories of you at the reunion. I know your spirit will be with us.

Rest in peace my old friend....Go to God ..... prayers for your family

My Sincerest Condolences to the Family, Loved Ones & Many, Many Friends of Richard - hearing the news, here in Florida, of Richard's passing was a very sad, sad phone call for me. Richard was such a "Gentleman", "Wonderful Friend", "Kind & Compassionate Old Soul" who I will Miss Greatly upon my trips back home. My Thoughts & Prayers are with You All in such a time of Grief & Sorrow. Love You Richard - Always Have - Always Will -

Friend, writer, artist, web designer, teacher, traveler, survivor, gentleman, dancer, movie buff, and a shining light in hundreds of lives over the years and he still blushed easily. Eternally optimistic with recent Masters in Creative Writing, a wonderful self published thesis novella, embarking soon to teach in China. He knew something about everything, and listened to other people's ideas with enthusiasm and infinite patience. A huge absence looms. In our hearts forever. My new expression in the face of odds will be "What would Richard do?" He would have blushed at the thought.

I have great memories of my childhood and my friendship with Richard. Brilliant, funny, scholarly and I can still hear his terrific laugh in my heart although I have not heard it in many years. My heartfelt sympathies to Bruce, Susan and Richards family and many friends.

Love in Christ

Dan Jerome

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Rogers family at this difficult time. Richard was a classmate of ours and was one of the kindest people we knew. May the Holy Spirit look over him.
Dan and Janice Langton

To the Cheney Family - so sorry for the loss of your brother and uncle. May he RIP and you all find beautiful memories to remember him by.

Richard was a funny, brilliant, and gentle soul. He will be SO missed by everyone who knew him, but we can all aspire to be like him so his legacy can live on. RIP my old friend...

I am going to miss the stories and remember our friendship. I will miss him. He was one of a kind. Your Friend always Leanne

So sad. Richard was a beautiful soul. We are all a bit more enlightened for having known him. Prayers for Bruce and all the family.

I will cherish the memories of our time together over the years. It is heartbreaking to lose such a wonderful friend - you only think about the "time we'll get together again". But time is fleeting, so grateful for the memories of this kind, brilliant, and humble man who was an angel among us. Rest in Peace dear friend. Most heartfelt condolences to Bruce and Susan and your families. Love & Prayers, Philip and Marie MacAllister

I am going to miss the stories and remember our friendship. I will miss him. He was one of a kind. Your Friend always Leanne

I have so many happy memories growing up having the Rogers for neighbors. Riding bikes, playing in the field, going to church, our mothers always laughing together. I was thrilled to be able to re connect with Richard on Facebook after all those years, but heartbroken that now we will never be able to get together & chat. Rest in peace my friend and prayers & love to Bruce, Susan and their families.

I will cherish the memories of our time together over the years. It is heartbreaking to lose such a wonderful friend - you only think about the "time we'll get together again". But time is fleeting, so grateful for the memories of this kind, brilliant, and humble man who was an angel among us. Rest in Peace dear friend. Most heartfelt condolences to Bruce and Susan and your families. Love & Prayers, Philip and Marie MacAllister

It is hard to believe that Richard has left us. I babysat all of the Roger children. Our families had many fun times together. Richard was always happy and smiling. He was a scholor even when he was little. We had planned to get together this summer when I came home. Prayers and love to the family.

Part 2: Richard left Lesley, and then I. I moved back to Maine to take care of my mother and got job teaching 5th grade. Thus began Richard’s visits to midcoast Maine. Trips to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland became a yearly event. The year of the Jamie Wyeth - Andy Warhol exhibit stands out. Jamie Wyeth and Warhol were friends and collaborators during the early 70s, so you can only imagine Richard’s comments as we read the descriptions accompanying the various sketches, paintings, and of the stuffed dog; yes, a stuffed dog! One summer we visited Winnie at her summer home on Isle Au Haut. This was quite a feat for Richard who navigated the mail-boat, wharves, and an island that was definitely not handicapped accessible with good-humor and grace. Another wonderful adventure involved being transported in a van, a Mercedes van, to Prout’s Neck where Winslow Homer’s studio sits on a bluff overlooking the bay. Interesting and also hilarious; Richard could find humor in almost everything he did. The last time I saw Richard was last fall. It was as wonderful as always and included what was to be our last trip to the Farnsworth. How can the kindest of men leave this earth now? Richard was such a good man, and we all needed him. How can this be?

Rest in peace my old friend....Go to God ..... prayers for your family

Sue and Family, thinking of you at this time. Mary Ann Hunter

Richard My gentle muppet friend My courageous ingenious fellow Humor filled frenzy of activity Grounded in a sense of civility A light chuckle at an odd time The joke finds me seconds later Quick wit sends me on a trip Your enjoyment on the flip Movies watched through years You'll like this one and I did At the theater we'd laugh when others did not We got it something not taught Your stories both real and imagined Whether on paper or spoken Interesting my attention directed At parties you found another affected Your presence welcome conversations Enjoying yourself glass of wine A good healthy jolly laugh A jolt down rocket Rogers path A path I found delivering pizzas So long ago when we 'lived the dream' Snow storm no tip you took their shovels Subtle sneaky get em' back levels And just that you took me up a notch Your intelligence rubbed off Books you read became accessible Conversations now not so impossible You understood the creative dilemma The conflict of money vs art Societal expectations screw that An occasional swear perfectly aimed at Your struggle so difficult the fight But to find humor fought that cancer So many healings until the last In and out so many blasts It would not heal so a decision made A leg gone and a life renewed I called it was no small feat My color has returned I feel great Amazing upbeat and happy Studying moving forward Teaching now telling stories of students Enjoyed and disgusted equal events Tackling Chinese with gusto Searching for that great job Twenty four resumes in a month No responses until that punch Munch on this cookie Shangai High fives a job with real bite The excitement I had not seen for awhile After so long and what a trial Ni Hao my friend and farewell You led a most interesting life A man not un-like your last post To Sir Richard I toast! JLS 2016

Camden, Maine October 2015

So sad. Richard was a beautiful soul. We are all a bit more enlightened for having known him. Prayers for Bruce and all the family.

(Part 1) I first saw Richard in a translation workshop: an older gentleman with glasses and blue eyes who was translating The Master and Margarita. I wanted to talk to him but didn’t until the end of the semester; in a stroke of good fortune, we turned in our final projects at the same time. There were a few minutes of waiting, and a rather long hallway, and a ride in an elevator to enjoy, but I hoped one of us would be bold and suggest we keep talking on purpose. In the end, we had a pizza at some agreeable hole in the wall. This was the first of many delightful meetings. The MFA program wasn’t easy for me (truth be told, I hated it from beginning to end), but it gave me two gifts: slightly improved job prospects and my friend Richard. For the latter alone, I would endure it again. I knew Richard during his second life. In the first he’d been a professor at Lesley (“They were always looking for new sources of revenue,� he said. “I suggested they turn the whole school into a parking garage�), a member of an admissions committee (“Every kid wrote a dead grandparent story�) a graphic designer, a painter, a student at Brown and a pilgrim at Plymouth Plantation (modest in all things, he said his plain looks had been considered an asset. Evidently the colonists weren’t eye-catching). He was, I gather, a fabulous salsa dancer. He did a lot of traveling--“Running around the world like a maniac,� as he put it--to unusual destinations like Romania. (“It looked like the city at one time had aspired to be charming with Parisian style,� he wrote about Bucharest.) These were days of exhilaration; traveling in England with a beloved friend, he once found himself driving down an airport runway. (continued...)

(Part 2) In his late forties, Richard found out he had cancer. After a few dreadful years of unsuccessful treatment, he traded a leg for his life. He wasn’t bitter about this; nor did he pretend it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It was what it was, and he wore it with dignity. When we got to a restaurant, he leaned his crutches against a wall and we forgot about them for the evening. Even if it took a little bit longer, Richard pretty much did what he wanted, went where he wanted to go. What he most wanted was to be an elementary school teacher. Interviewers, he said, were surprised to see a disabled man in his fifties, but I think it would have been perfect for him: in essence he was a gentle, joyful man. In the past year he had taught young children at a Chinese school in Boston, and a month before his death had accepted a job in Shanghai. He was bold, and encouraged boldness in others. Last spring I got EU citizenship and was thinking of moving to Barcelona. I was nervous, but Richard was unequivocal: “Go,� he said. And I did. In an era of memoir, he was reluctant to write about his illness. “I don’t want to be the cancer writer,� he said. A man of deep curiosity, he chose instead to read recently declassified documents and write stories about what they contained. Nuclear weapons on Cape Cod, German prisoners in the US during World War II. I always enjoyed his clear, honest prose, but he said his stories weren’t ready for prime time. He worked on them every day, and was thinking of ways to combine words with painting and graphic art. It was easier to tell certain stories this way, he said, like the ones that came from his life. One day he would have found the right angle, twisted his vast knowledge and various talents into a startling work of art. He had it in him. (Continued...)

(Part 3) Richard believed that his writing had a ways to go, but as a person he was fully and beautifully realized. Like a fine piece of writing, he was the fruit of a thousand harrowing hours. Now that I think of it, he was rather like my favorite novels: a soothing presence to suit any mood. He could talk about Chekhov or Pee Wee Herman, laugh with me (Richard was always laughing or about to start laughing) or talk me down from the roof. His illness had made him humble; the kindness I suppose he had all along. He was generous with everything he had: knowledge, patience, time. One night he drove a friend of mine home from a party; it added at least an hour to an already grueling trip, but he pretended it was on the way. For him writing was not a zero-sum game. He reveled in the successes of classmates, was excited by their potential. “He’s going to be famous!� he often said about a guy in his workshop. He was the first to admire, the last to try to take anyone down. I trusted him with my writing (in other words, with my heart), and he never made me regret it. I don’t know what Richard thought about the afterlife (I was curious, but given his experience it seemed tactless to ask him), but personally I think he’s back on the dance floor these days, chatting with Bulgakov in the breaks between songs. Richard, if you can read this, thank you for letting me know you. Dance in peace.

Richard I will miss you always and thank you for our great friendship. We did lots of fun things together and travelled in England, Europe and the U.S. You taught me lots about art and we enjoyed many museums together. Coming the the Boston area won't be the same without you and I hope we meet again some day as I can't believe this is goodbye. Thinking of you with fondness always your friend Bee x

Part one What follows is a glimpse into my friendship with Richard. I met Richard in the fall of ’93. I was co-teaching a course in the teaching of writing with Winnie Skolnikoff. It was Winnie’s class, and I had signed on to handle the technology components. I did not realize that everyone writes in Winnie’s class, teachers, included! So there I was living a nightmare as the idea of sharing writing was chilling to me. In high school, my writing, and thus I, had been skewered, and I shamed. I had never recovered. In Winnie’s class I was grouped for peer editing with Richard and Melinda Green. By the end of that class, Richard and I were friends, a friendship that lasted all these years. For a time, Richard and I shared an office at Lesley. Those were great years filled with all kinds of fun. It was during this period that Richard took up ballroom dancing and we would slip tapes of his competitions into the VCR in our office. He really was quite good, but it was sometimes hard to see the dancing as I was laughing so hard at his commentary. An endless train of students would stop by our office and Richard would help them, always patient, and respectful no matter what. But laugh we did after a few of the more clueless students left. After all, this was the era of the Dummy’s Books, and we even had our dummy mascot, a bendable dummy man. One year, Richard and I went to Orlando to present a paper. We thought we had done well to be asked to present, until we got there and realized the conference existed for the sole purpose of faculty getting published and lining the pockets of the organizers. So after we gave our presentation off we went to Epcot for an extremely funny day!