The world is a small place.

When my husband went to Syracuse University, one of his apartment roommates was a great guy from Jamestown.

He talked about him many times — the good old days — and what a great cook this roommate was and what a unique and special person he was.

My husband ate well during those years. And the guys who shared the apartment had fun staying up drinking coffee all night and watching westerns on TV. This guy knew every actor in every movie — even the minor actors. He was like a walking encyclopedia of movies.

When we moved to Lakewood five years ago, my husband said he was anxious to look his old roommate up. They had emailed, saw each other on a few special occasions, and chatted over the years but had fallen out of touch for a while.

Finding John Franks was easy — everyone knew him, including a few of my relatives. People like John don’t make a showing in this world every day, but when they do, they can charm a whole town.

My husband told me when John met someone — even just casually — he’d ask them what their birthday is and they’d get a card from him every year. He wouldn’t write the date down, but he’d make a mental note of it, and even someone he didn’t know well would get a card in the mailbox on their birthday.

“That is his thing,” my husband told me about the birthday cards that would come in the mail, and it still strikes me today how that simple act of kindness made such a statement about the sender.

“Tell him my birthday is in July,” I said.

John came over for lunch one day and my husband failed to tell me that he was a chef. I’d made us some good sandwiches, but hey, if I’d known John was a seasoned chef, I would have taken out the good dishes and made something French with a fancy name.

So, during lunch I hear that John is a foodie and a chef and I’m looking at my rueben sandwiches like I’d served porridge. John was gracious, but after he left I asked my dear husband why he had failed to mention this little fact.

“It’s like having an interior designer over for a visit and entertaining them in the garage,” I told him.

My husband had great stories about his outings with John—once they went to a wedding in Albany together—and he told me how John’s smile lit up the wedding reception.

“First impressions are so important” he told me today. “If anyone could make a good first impression it was John.”

And people have been telling me what a good American John was — very patriotic, always a true believer in the qualities that made America great. And what is more American than hamburgers? My Uncle John Hickman and John Franks used to scour the landscape in Western New York in search of the best hamburgers. One of their favorites was the Bellevue in Falconer.

He was that guy everyone liked to be around.

When John got sick it was a blow to everyone that knew him. The first thing you thought is how unfair it is — that bad things shouldn’t happen to good people.

My husband met him for lunch last summer in Bemus and they ate chicken wings and burgers and talked about John’s new puppy — a bull mastiff. He had been recently married and was beaming about his wife.

It was a nice afternoon — sunny, sitting around with an old friend — and it would be the last time he would see John.

I’ve never written a personal column about someone I didn’t know very well. But John Franks was a special person–one of those people with all kinds of talents and a passion for things, from cooking to birding to–according to my husband– analyzing the asphalt on people’s driveways — a leftover talent from having owned a paving company.

No, I didn’t know him well–something I regret. I mostly knew him through other people — people who really loved him, who told great stories about him, who had only the kindest things to say.

And so I felt the need, then, to commemorate his life here in this space and let you know that someone really special walked this earth, made his indelible impression on this town, fed people good things, lit up a room, didn’t complain about rueben sandwiches, enjoyed hamburgers and life, and created really great memories with people who were lucky to know him.

His passing last week will be hard for a lot of folks. But I hope they can take what was special about John Franks and carry it forward.

We can honor him by making the world a better place, just as he did.

Make a nice meal for someone today, send out a birthday card, or just go eat a burger in his honor.