Remembering Darrell Jenks ’80

Darrell was my roommate during our sophomore year at Reed. We lived together in an old house in southeast Portland, together with a couple of other people, including his fellow drummer, Phil Waite ’80. I left Reed after that year, and only came back to visit once, in the spring of Darrell’s senior year; that was the last time I saw him, and as is typical for people of our generation, I lost touch with him until about a year ago, when we made contact again on Facebook.

I enjoyed Darrell’s presence immensely. He was one of the very few people I have met with the gift of intensely enjoying life within the moment. You knew when this was occurring: often, he had a particular gleam in his eyes, when you could see that he was capturing the sense of just that place and time.

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Another thing I found striking about Darrell: he would listen to you. And not with just half his attention, like most other 19-year-olds; he would listen to every. word. you. said., and then analyze it and tell you what you had actually meant to say. He did not, as the saying goes, suffer fools lightly; but he would let you speak foolishly anyway, and instead of changing the subject, he would discuss what you had said as though it really needed discussing. It made every conversation with him a challenge and an adventure, even just talking about whose turn it was to buy the groceries over breakfast, and I can still recall many of those conversations almost word for word. They are still one of the great delights of my life.

Darrell was incredibly brave. We rode several freight trains together that year, and nothing frightened him; he would approach every situation with either complete equanimity or occasional and brief irritation at how I couldn’t quite just figure out what needed to be done, and get on with it. This is also how he advised me, as someone vastly older and more mature (he was a year older); when confronted with the usual 19-year-old male problems in my personal life, he would listen carefully, and then very matter-of-factly tell me what I needed to do. At the time, some of his advice was hard to take, but thinking back on it, it was always exactly the right thing to do.

Darrell, for me, was one of those few people you meet that you carry around with you for the rest of your life, as an internal discussant of how you are doing, what you are thinking, and whether it is all working out. I can still hear his voice, see the gleam in his eye, and cherish the times (not often, but all the better for that) when he thought I had said or done something rather clever. I am still happy that he was my friend at that very important point in my life, and wish I had found him again sooner.

—Randy Johnson ’80

Cambridge, England