<< Front page News March 12, 2004

Memorial services held for students

Ben and Zac remembered with song and poetry

By Josh Keating

“What has died must live again,” read a line from “Cold Mountain” by the Chinese poet Han Shan, one of the many tributes offered to the lives of Benjamin Caraco and Zachary Tucker at a memorial service in Finney Chapel Tuesday. The two students were killed in a car accident on South Professor Street on Feb. 20.

The welcoming remarks by Rabbi Shimon Brand, who quoted from both scripture and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, set the tone of both reflection and celebration that characterized the event.

Conservatory senior Emily DuFour gave a moving rendition of the sparse and lyrical Allemande from Bach’s sixth Suite for Unaccompanied Cello.

“Over the past two weeks, Ben and Zac have been very much in my mind,” President Nancy Dye said. ”No one who is 21 is supposed to die. At 21 you’re just beginning.”

“I am troubled to think that since their deaths I know more about Zac and Ben than I know about almost all my living students,” physics professor John Scofield said. Scofield knew Tucker through his involvement with the Oberlin Plague hockey team. He remembered him as a “tall slow skater,” a remark which garnered laughs from the many Plague players and fans in attendance.

Scofield was Caraco’s advisor and was in the process of writing him a recommendation to the engineering program at Columbia University.

Scofield also recounted a painful anecdote about meeting Caraco’s father, who told him of how Ben had been a designated driver for his friends in high school.

“How could two years at Oberlin erase those values?” he had been asked.

“We cannot give meaning to these deaths,” Scofield said. “But we must give meaning to them.”

Sophomore Mike Kanon remembered the two as “the kind of people I wanted to meet when I came to Oberlin.”

“Ben could listen better than anyone I knew,” he recalled.

“He was good at fixing things, but better at helping people.”

In contrast to the laid-back Caraco, his friend Tucker was “a rock star” who “loved Chinese to the point where he would speak it for hours just to mess with us,” Kanon said.

He also echoed Scofield’s sentiments about the lessons of the tragedy.

“We [Tucker and Caraco’s friends] have all agreed that it is out of the question to ever drive drunk or get in a car with someone who is drunk.”

Junior Annie Gaus read a poem by her classmate Alison Palmer, titled “This is a Wet World.”

“If water is life,” it read, “the current circles and brings you back to a raw beginning.”

Junior Louis Eskin, who attended high school with Tucker at the Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, N.J., remembered him as “an amazing presence” and read a letter from their school.

Junior Molly Harper sang the jazz standard “Memories of You” by Eubie Blake, accompanied by Kanon on the piano.

A slide show titled “Visual Memories” was presented, showing images of the pair throughout their time at Oberlin. The photos reinforced the stories throughout the evening of both Caraco’s friendly easy-going demeanor and Tucker’s energetic and ebullient personality. Many of the photos showed the two consuming alcohol, a grim reminder of the circumstances of their deaths.

A group of Caraco and Tucker’ friends ended the evening with a bluegrass influenced rock performance as the Donkey Band, a name based on a favorite joke of Tucker’s where he would replace words in conversation with the word “donkey.”

The band consisted of senior Eben Pariser, juniors Andrew Green, Phil Korngut, Nate Beckett and Aaron Englander and sophomore Evan Childress.


 
 
   

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