Ev had the richest and prickliest personality of anyone I can remember from Yale. His French was fluent and flawless. His sophistication in virtually any domain of discussion was genuine and confident. Ev was opinionated, fiercely argumentative, and expansive in conversation. Ev was the only classmate who matched my impression of what it meant to be born and raised in Manhattan. 

What surprised me about Ev was his flair for playful camp humor. During our senior year Ev and I found ourselves in an unlikely conversation. One of us had wondered out loud what a Jacqueline Susann-style novel about college life would be like. Within minutes Ev and I grabbed a spiral notebook and started plotting an opus called “Campus!” replete with B-novel clichés of student-professor liaisons, revolutionary cells peopled with grungy socialists, drug dealers and drug consumers, all varieties of sexual experimentation, corrupt administrators, sadistic researchers in the medical school, students with narcissistic parents in the pitched battle of divorce — in short, a steaming pile of cheap stereotypes. We had a number of laughs about this précis, and we even agreed on a pseudonym, “Evan Fraser,” for our co-authored schlockfest. 

That giddy evening when Ev devised outrageous, naughty plot twists felt like an invitation to grab my freedom and have some fun with it. Ev showed that he was fearless and had an insatiable appetite for play. 

Todd Freter

 

I write not with a story or a memory, but rather with a thank you to Ev Wetchler.  It may not be of any use for this particular occasion, but I wanted to get it on record somewhere. 

As you may remember, Ev was too real to be cool, at an age when being cool meant everything to most of us and trying to be cool was a full time pursuit for many.  His reservoir of enthusiasm, hope and idealism was so deep, I’m still drawing from that well thirty years after his death.  Much of what I value most about myself had its genesis in my friendship with Ev, and that is a debt that never can be repaid.  How do I put that in one phrase or one memory? 

Jeffrey T. Gersick