The sunglasses were mine, a gift to a friend who passed from this world too soon and too young.

It's hard to believe after 27 years Scott is gone. It's hard to believe that two days ago in 1984 I would receive a phone call from my college friend Rob, who has since died from colon cancer, in Tennessee that Scott had died.

It was poor judgment, getting pulled behind a car on the skateboard he loved by a mutual friend. I can't call it an accident, because to me there are no accidents, but the skateboard hit a rock and threw Scott to the ground. He was gone.

I was at home in North Carolina having decided to not immediately finish my degree requirements, something that would not be finished until some 15 years later, immaturity and stupidness, I guess, and a desire to chase a girl across the country to California that ended badly.

I sat on my bed contemplating what I had been told. There was to be a memorial the next day on campus. I decided to instead drive to Maryland for the funeral and burial that Saturday.

That is the background. It isn't the story. I think the story came to me this past Sunday as I searched the archives of my college's paper to find some shreds of a reminder and I found it in the letters section, a tribute written by me, a tribute that may have served as a 27-year-old wakeup call.

When I heard the news 1 thought the right response would be to cry, but after thinking hard, I said to myself that Scott would have said his famous line, “Go with the flow.”

The letter continues:

The thought in my head sounded very cold and morbid, but pondering it more I reckoned in my mind that Scott died doing something he very much enjoyed.

The jolt came in the next paragraph:

I hold no contempt for that skateboard, because we had talked about when we went — whether it was “taking a drive to Trenton,” or talking about the Redskins — we figured that when the time came, we'd be enjoying something. "Go with the flow" was our statement to an anxious and stress burdened world.

When I reposted this letter to my Facebook page after finding it Sunday, I made a notation that said, “Rereading this, I think I lost something along the way. We all lost a little something when Scott died.”

That's what the story is, about rediscovering the meaning of going with the flow and I think in the days and years following his death, following finishing my degree and choosing the stress filled path of journalism, that's what I forgot, to go with the flow.

After the 1984 Super Bowl and the Redskins' humiliating loss to the Raiders, we drove back to campus and along the way Scott got a speeding ticket. In his usual way he chalked it up to experience and when we got back to the dorm both of us, in Redskins gear, had to run the gauntlet of jeers and taunts. That may be the first time I never said anything wise or derogatory back. That was the kind of person he was, a person who just made you better by his presence.

Now, after rereading the words I wrote and rethinking that day 27 years and two days ago, I'm going to challenge myself to live up to the words I have forgotten.

Cry if you must, I know I will, but if you can help it at all, and can hold it back, smile and think of surfing, basketball, girls, and the Washington Redskins. When you do, you'll be holding his memory better than tears could ever express.Go with the flow.

Rest in peace Scott Yankelevitz. I'm glad you have the sunglasses — Lance Martin