He taught me that I shouldn’t always drive in overdrive. I didn’t realize this until I was driving with him, and he said, “Why are you driving in overdrive?” And I’m like, “I always drive in overdrive.” In high school this blond lifeguard that I was friends with, she told me to drive in overdrive because it was better for the car or something. So ever since, for about four years, I was driving in overdrive. He taught me that above 45 is overdrive, not under 45. I was telling that story on Saturday and [Suzy] Shmagin ‘03 was like, “Really?” So he’s still teaching people how to drive.
—Rachael Dreyer ‘04
Even if the two of us were in the midst of talking about how bad we felt, he could turn our sadness into silliness until the two of us were giggling uncontrollably. His infectious humor could magically overpower even the darkest of days. Jonathan’s first year at Grinnell was a pretty hard year for both of us, but looking back I can only remember the laughter.
In particular I can remember sitting with him in the Dibble laundry room, his words distracting me from the world of academics as we created a fantasy world for ourselves. One night while enjoying the sweetness of intoxicated snacking, we had discovered the Munchies, a green slimy species persecuted by the Grinnell community. That day in the laundry room we wandered away from the worn out complaints about our ever-increasing workload and brought these sock-eating creatures to life. We rambled about them for hours that day and in the remaining weeks of the semester, making up ridiculous lives for them that no one but the two of us could appreciate.
—Liz Hulse ’02.5
Just a few days after our first meeting, I saw him in the hall and I greeted him with a big, “Hello Mr. Raxter.” He seemed glad that I had remembered his name. I was pretty impressed myself because I usually have at least a five-second delay in recalling most anybody’s name and this is really too long to be of any use. But he had taken pains to point out that even he thought Raxter was an uncommon and tricky name, so of course this helped me to remember it almost immediately. He soon became a familiar face in the Math/CS department.
—Royce Wolf, Mathematics
Jonathan Raxter was a student in my advanced mathematics course in field theory. I want to share with you some of my impressions in hopes that these thoughts will help some of his friends.
Jonathan was a talented mathematics student. He was not always able to concentrate on completing his mathematics assignments. I understand from his friends that he worked in spurts. After his not having done some key assignments in my class, he did a beautiful job on the first exam in my course. What is remarkable is that without the benefit of comments on the assignments, he had been able to master this material on his own. When I handed back his exam and congratulated him, he got a shy but proud grin on his face. He had a winning smile.
Jonathan was a gentle person. He was friendly and unusually sensitive to others’ feelings. When he realized that the smoke on his jacket made me cough, he left his jacket on the bench outside my office when he came to see me. Last week when I had problems with my back, he asked about me and told Tom to wish me well. In class sessions when we worked in small groups or gave presentations, he was supportive of his fellow students.
I mourn the tragic loss of this gentle, talented person. And despite the sense of loss, I am grateful to have had him as my student.
—Emily Moore, Mathematics
I remember the first time I heard about him. I heard about him through Sarah, and he’d drive Sarah [Watson] to Wal-Mart to pick up some sort of shampoo, and I remember hearing about this incredibly nice guy who, was, like, letting this old lady sit in front of him for ten minutes, like, to go through the aisles, and he was just sitting back and waiting his turn, and Sarah said, “You have to be assertive. Just grab the shampoo. It’s okay.” So I remember that’s the first time I heard about him. I don’t quite remember the first time I met him. At the very beginning of first year, though.
He was very creative, too. He invented with some other people, he invented these little green monsters called Munchies that lived in the laundry room in Dibble that ate everyone’s socks. … I remember doing laundry with them, and they were just like, “The munchies. The munchies are going to get that.”
—Lauren Flessner ’04
He was a really good card player. He had this fantastic ability to shoot the moon when playing hearts. He loved to play cribbage, practically every day.
—a friend
I met him at the first floor study break, and I immediately picked him out as someone I would like, and I thought, that person, right there, I’m gonna hang out with that person. And I don’t really remember how we started hanging out, but it happened pretty quickly, and after that, I spent tons and tons of time with Jonathan. We spent a lot of time in each others’ rooms and hung out together all the time. His facial expression was like the expression of a depressive and of someone who had a certain sort of sarcastic, ironic, morbid sense of humor. I was like, I can relate to that person.
—Astrid Roll ’04
I remember freshman year I had a really bad experience with Disco, and I went to his room. He just let me cry and hugged me. I had a stupid gold necklace on that I couldn’t get off, and he took it off for me and threw it across the room.
—a friend
I would also like to express my sadness about Jonathan Raxter, as he lived in Norris his first year. I will always remember his thoughtfulness and his sweet Southern accent. He loved playing with my cat, Bella, and watching TV in the Norris lounge with his friends. My thoughts go to his mother, specifically, as I have talked with her and I know she loves her son deeply.
—Janelle Larson, RLC
He and Liz Hulse used to watch movies in Rawson lounge. They’d occasionally take entire days off. One time, I came in and they were cuddled up, watching a movie. This bat came in and the two of them were just shrieking like little tiny girls, hiding under the blanket, huddled together in absolute fear of this bat.
We hung out a lot last year too in Read pit. He always said he was the worst SA. In a non-smoking floor, he smoked in his room. The floor always reeked of cigarette smoke.
Once we tried to make our own Long Island Ice Teas. They were disgusting concoctions, about 80 percent hard liquor. I couldn’t drink it, but he didn’t have a problem.
—Erin Nichols ‘02
One day, we decided we wanted new jobs, so we looked through the paper in town. I remember we skipped across the parking lot, all happy that we were getting real jobs. But nobody was hiring. He got a job as a bookkeeper for a trucking company. He would come home with crazy stories and junk food. They would send him home with pieces of Snickers cake — really crazy junk food — he’d be like, “Come and eat some of my food.” And he’d tell us about the crazy truckdrivers and the chain-smoking women he worked with.
—Rachel Dreyer ‘04
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