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CHRISTINE J. BARBUTO: A Practical Joker

 

Christine J. Barbuto was one of those people whom everyone else wanted to be around. Her friends from the University of Rhode Island recalled how they hung out in 106 Barlow Hall, where she lived with Jennifer Tice in her freshman year. Erik J. Granskog, a college friend, spoke of the good times they had "playing charades, wearing stupid hats, watching `Cheers,' dancing and singing to the Violent Femmes over and over, inventing silly drinking games."

Dianne Walsh, one of Ms. Barbuto's two older sisters, recalled an old family tale: when someone praised Ms. Walsh's singing at a concert, Ms. Barbuto asked, "How long have you had this problem with your hearing?" "She was probably 9 at the time," Ms. Walsh said.

Ms. Barbuto was also a practical joker. Her former roommate, now Jennifer Tice- McClain, said the two of them would hide behind the curtains when they saw male students heading for class and make catcalls until they turned red and ran.

"The sad thing is that Christine and I were not done being roommates," Ms. Tice- McClain said. "We always joked about how we were going to live together at the same old lady home and put Ex-Lax into the brownies and Saran-Wrap the toilets."

Ms. Barbuto, 32, of Brookline, Mass., was a buyer for the TJX Companies and was on American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11.

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times