Back in the late 1960s, Harry Warren and I played a weekly squash game at Bowdoin. If it’s Tuesday it must be Harry. The matches were always hard-fought, always spirited, always close. Win or lose, Harry was always fun to play, a great competitor, a good sport.

After learning of Harry’s recent death, I thought about those matches and about our parallel lives. We both left the corporate world to move to Maine and work at Bowdoin; we both served on Bowdoin’s Board of Trustees — he as Secretary and me, later, as Assistant Secretary; we both loved being around Bowdoin students; we were both avid Polar Bear fans; and we both served on the Board of Directors of the Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid.

There were, to be sure, important differences. I left Brunswick in 1971 to pursue other career opportunities and didn’t return until 2002; Harry never left. As a result, while I have come to know hundreds of Bowdoin students over the years, Harry knew thousands.

As another example, I divorced my high school sweetheart in 1987 and got remarried in 1989 to Tina Savell Barker. Incidentally, Tina’s mother Betsey Savell, who was great friends with Harry and Judy, always referred to Harry as “Handsome Harry.” Harry and Judy Warren, on the other hand, met in junior high school in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania back in the 1940’s, started dating in high school, married after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952, and stayed forever married.

I called Judy to ask if we could get together to chat, so I could write this piece; happily, she agreed. While scheduling the time to meet, Judy stopped in mid-sentence and said, “I’m watching something amazing. I love cardinals, and a male and a female cardinal just landed on our porch.” She also noted that we would be meeting on the day of their 64th wedding anniversary.

Within minutes of sitting down, I asked, “Tell me about Harry.” She said, eyes misting, “Harry was a precious soul.” Theirs was an extraordinary marriage, a true partnership in every sense of the term. In fact, I almost titled this piece “Harry and Judy,” but I knew Judy would balk as she wanted the focus to be on Harry. When I asked her why everyone seemed to love Harry, she said, “Harry genuinely loved people, and he always saw the best in everyone.”

I asked the key to their long and successful marriage, and she said, “We were devoted to each other; we were best friends.”

On Harry’s role as a father, Judy said, “He was totally devoted — very caring, very understanding. And he was a great listener.”

I decided to chat with their three adult children to get their take on Harry as a father. Douglas Warren, the oldest, said, “Harry was big and rugged, but he was always a gentle man. I remember when I was a kid and dad would kick the ball so high in the air that it was scary to try and catch it. And when we played basketball, he’d catch my friends off guard when he’d throw behind-the-back passes. He was very sensitive. I remember when he and mom took me to the bus station to head off to college in Minnesota. Dad wore sunglasses — something he never did any other time. I don’t think he wanted me to see him crying.”

David Warren, the youngest, said, “Dad was kind and caring to a fault. I remember there was this cheesy bad song back in the 1970’s called, ‘I Can Help.’ That was Dad. He always wanted to help people. After he died, I’ve learned more and more about the amazing impact he had on so many people.”

Susie Warren Hanley, the middle child, said, “When I was a little girl I would pretend that I didn’t know how to read so Dad would keep reading to me. I think he knew, but he had amazing patience and would keep on reading. He and I would go over to the Dayton Arena during family time and skate around as fast as we could. It was great fun. And I’d help him do the yard work and gardening. His green thumb rubbed off on me; I still love to garden.”

Bob Ives, Spiritual Director at Bowdoin, developed an extraordinarily close relationship with Harry and Judy over the last 51 years. Judy refers to Bob as their “third son.” “I came to Bowdoin as a freshman in 1965, and Harry arrived that same year as the Assistant Director of the Moulton Union. I had recently lost my parents while I was a student at Deerfield Academy, and in those days, Bowdoin had no personal counselors available to students. If a student needed to talk to someone, they just went to Harry, and that’s what I did. At every major point of my life at Bowdoin and after graduating, Harry’s been there for me.”

When you ask people around town about Harry Warren, you hear common refrains: “Good guy” and “Great man” and “Lots of fun” and “Loved Bowdoin.” You hear words like “loyal” and “devoted” and “steady.” Bill Mason a longtime friend, says simply. “You can’t replace someone like Harry Warren. He was a gem.”

Indeed, he was. Let’s just be thankful that he shared our space and lit our way.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” column at dtreadw575@aol.com