It’d be wrong not to say a word of farewell to my friend, neighbor and fellow political traveler Charlie Johnston, the retired savings and loan executive who died this week at 84. Friends will gather at his home from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday to remember him. There’s plenty of material. He was still peppering me not long ago with copies of his scholarly writings on finance and warnings he’d sent years ago about the collapse that befell us. He perfected the art of making a classic french baguette. He cheered the arrival of the first purple martin of the season. He had a passion for education, conservation and politics. Memorials tell the story: the Ozark Society, The Nature Conservancy or the Democratic Party of Arkansas.

PS — A friend writes to remember Charlie fondly for helping her get her first home loan in the early 1970s a time when, believe it or not, credit was not always so easy for single working women to obtain.

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