This past weekend Kenneth J. Souza passed away. You may not have known Ken; if not, you wouldn’t know the weight felt by that one sentence. In this edition, you’re going to hear a lot about Ken. I won’t apologize for that, should you not be interested. Ken deserves this and more. In times like this, I would always turn to Ken and say, “can you write up something appropriate for this week?” I’m not the writer, so you’ll need to bear with me, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself.
Ken Souza was the editor of the school newspaper at UMass Dartmouth back in the early 1990s. He and I worked in offices next to each other, and in 1992 when the opportunity arose to start The Wanderer, Ken was the first person to join me on this voyage. For seventeen years we spent every week figuring out how to best inform our readers about everything they wanted to hear. Ken was instrumental in crafting The Wanderer into what it is today. We spent endless amounts of time trying out new formats, writing columns – you name it – also paying games, watching movies, and listening to music.
I’ve spent the last couple of days connecting with friends and putting together stories about Ken trying to get a handle on what to do, what can be done, what should be done. The bottom line is apparently a cliché; life is short. Because life is so short, there’s no time to waste in being subtle. You know all those friends you haven’t spoken to in a while? Call them, right now. I’m not going to say they ‘may’ not be there tomorrow; I’m telling you they won’t be there tomorrow, because there isn’t always a tomorrow.
Thank you Ken, for everything. You will be missed.
-Paul Lopes