DONNIE FLECHTNER

I wrote this story about my boyhood chum, hoping to pay some small homage to his memory. 12/30/2016

DONNIE FLECHTNER

My friend Donnie died in 1974 at age forty-six. I read his very brief obituary in my Stevens alumni magazine six months afterwards. It provided few details. The news stunned me. He had been one of my best teen-age pals.

   We started high school together in 1940. He had the honor of being the youngest member of the class, only twelve years old, and sported a baby face to prove it. We shared the same homeroom, took the identical curriculum, and sat next to each other in virtually every class. We were members of the Junior Varsity high school basketball team and spent many hours playing sandlot baseball. We were members of many of the same high school clubs and both appeared in the senior play.

Donnie’s Jewish parents raised their only son to value education. His mother taught fifth grade public school and his father worked as either an engineer or a technician. Donnie made the Honor Roll every semester. It came as no surprise to me when Donnie finished second in the Stevens competitive examination and won a full four-year scholarship.

We began our college days together on July 1, 1944. He had broken his ankle a month earlier, sliding into second base. He started school using crutches. I carried all his books and his engineering tools, from slide rule to T-square, to every class. We sat next to each other in each one. He settled into the college routine immediately and began demonstrating his superior intellect and engineering acumen. I floundered badly.

The school had adopted a tri-semester program in order to graduate students more quickly. Four months later, we entered the second semester of our first year. Four months later, we began our sophomore year. At its conclusion, I dropped out of school to await military induction. Donnie's age allowed him to avoid the draft. He continued college at the same pace. He earned a degree as a Mechanical Engineer in 1947 at age 18. That same year I reentered school as a sophomore.

We had joined different fraternities whose houses were directly across the street from each other. As a result, we would often see each other at Saturday night parties. On one occasion, his date left him to join me at my fraternity house party. This made me feel very awkward.

He continued with his education and obtained a Master’s degree in 1949. Only 20 years of age, he found it difficult to obtain a suitable job. He worked at a lab performing routine mundane tasks.

In 1950, he joined the Air Force as a commissioned officer at the onset of the Korean “Police Action,” stationed at Wright Field, Ohio. I never saw him again afterwards.

Recently, I re-read his obituary. It indicated that at the time of his death he resided in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. On a whim, I called information and obtained a phone listing under his name. I dialed it, not knowing what to expect. The woman who answered turned out to be Donnie’s widow. The alumni obituary failed to make note that he had married.

After introducing myself, she talked with me for an hour, describing her life with Donnie. After he returned from military duty, RCA hired him to work at their Trenton, NJ facility. He rose to a top management position that imposed tremendous stress on him. Their first son, born mentally retarded, never matured beyond age two, and currently lived in a nearby institution. In contrast, their other son attended Stevens as an undergraduate, and later on served there as a professor. Talk about extremes in the fortunes of life.

She told me that Donnie's mother had lived with her until just last year, when she succumbed at age 94, in full possession of her faculties.

Then she knocked me for a loop. Donnie's employer, RCA, decided to scale back its workforce, and eliminated his position. He stayed on with the firm in a much lower engineering position. The stress became too much for him to bear. He committed suicide.

Donnie’s life had ended tragically. I cried after I hung up.

Jeez, Donnie. No job is worth it, you know?

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