Diploma in Machine engineering
Antonija Glavas

He was friend of mine, just like girlfriend, and I was his buddy. He played guitar very nicely and I sang very often down by the river on many summer evenings. Of course with our other friends we had always something to celebrate.

He was a very good student but at the end of the course he did not want to finish. There was not much left but he joked saying: "I have found a hair in my book, like in my soup." He found a very good job. It was very well paid and he worked as driver for a man who ran one of the funeral homes in our town.

He had to wear a dark suit. He was pretty tall and a very good looking man. He had to be serious and that was not easy for him. He joked sometimes that he was driving a big black limousine like Lucky Lucianno.

I asked him if it would bother him one day that he would drive me in this car in a coffin. He said kissing me on the top of my head: "I am not worried. The little devil in you will never die."

But after a while, he changed. I saw sometimes that he was absent, smoked more than usual and started to talk about ending his studies. I knew him like my pocket and I knew that something had happened but I couldn't reach him about it. His father asked me once about what was worrying and changing him. I couldn't tell him anything. He said smiling: "Whatever it is it must be a good inspiration for him to finish his studies."

In a very short time we all had a very good reason to celebrate. Our friend finished his studies and received his diploma as a machine engineer. The parents were very proud of him. Our whole group, about 12 of us went to the Adriatic coast to spend two weeks in the beautiful old stone house where his mother had been born. We had only to clean after ourselves and to water the plants in the garden.

He climbed up the big fig tree in the garden to pick fresh ripe figs for me. We heard the gulls and the crickets sitting in the garden or down on the beach. It was very nice and all of us enjoyed it very much.