Tuesday, May 18, 2021
I met Rick in 1967. We were sophmores in high school. He had a car and would pick me up every day for school. We both had a hard time with school. We'd get to school in the morning and sometimes look at each other and say, "nah I can't do this" and we'd take off for Point Defiance for the day. We both got very good at forging our mom's signature. We got caught eventually. Rick's car was an old Simca, a French car, it was really a beater but it got us around. One time we were going down highway 7 and a state patrol man pulled us over. He had us get out of the car while he checked it over and he gave Rick a list of things to fix. Then he said, "This car is nothing but a death trap." From then on we called it the Death Mobile. Sometime later we were on the Fort Lewis Prairie, you could go out there back then, the car died so we left it and hitch hiked back home. We didn't get back there until the following weekend and then we couldn't find it. We kept looking and finally there it was. It had been run over and crushed by army tanks and was only about two feet tall. We just laughed and hitch hiked home.
After high school, I think it was 1970, Riz was in the Navy, stationed in San Diego. So just before Thanksgiving, Rick and I took a train from Tacoma to LA where an aunt lived. I don't remember her name, but Riz had left his car there, so Rick and I picked the car up and drove down to San Diego and had Thanksgiving dinner with Riz on his ship. It was really fun and good food too. Then the three of us drove back to Tacoma cause Riz was on leave. There were five or six of us guys who liked to hike and camp out, we had started in 68', 69', but in the 70's we started doing a lot more. We really got into backpacking and mountaineering and we climbed Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt. Adams, St. Helen's, we tried Mt. Rainier several times but got defeated every time. Rick may have summited with another group, but I never made it. One time he asked me if I would drive up with him to the Carbon River entrance and leave him and his dog Jodie there and pick them up a week later. He just wanted to experience that for himself so I dropped him off outside the park so he could sneak Jodie in, and picked him up the following Saturday. Our group of friends did lots of hiking and snowshoeing all over Mt. Rainier and other places. It was great, good times.
The 80's is when we got into weightlifting and fitness training. George Ford, Mike Jones, and Rick and I fixed up the garage at Jone's house into a gym. We had a power rack, free weights and all kinds of excercise equipment. The four of us worked out from 82' to 90', eight years for three times a week. It took almost three hours for all four of us to do the program. Rick gained over 25 pounds of muscle and was in really good shape. We could always count on Rick to be there and get us going. He was our motivator. He wouldn't let us slack off much, the only exception was if we played 2 on 2 hoops in the driveway. We'd call that our leg workout and then do some upper body exercise. It was hard to do year after year, we all had our jobs, families, and homes to take care of, but we did it for eight years. I wrote it all down in several notebooks, still have them.
In the 90's Rick decided to play golf. He dedicated himself to the game. He always had a good memory and had all the names and dates and information on different pro's. It was incredible the amount of information he had in his brain about golf. He worked hard to learn all he could about the game, both as player and teacher. One of the requirements to join the PGA was to score a 72 or lower in a game, witnessed by another PGA member. Anyone who has played golf knows how hard that is. Rick did it several times. As much as he liked playing and was good at it, he liked teaching golf, especially kids. He was really good at it. He also enjoyed helping the Wounded Warriors at American Lake Veterns Hostpital. He went out there alot and was always impressed by how hard these guys would work. Over the last ten years or so, we played golf, went on some hikes, and went on drives somewhere to get out of town and have a nice view of a river, the mountain, or a lake, and just sit and talk and talk and talk, about anything or nothing at all. Thanks for the memories Rick. You were a good man, a good friend, and I miss you.
That which we are, we are
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate but
Strong in will to strive, to seek,
To find, and not to yield
-Tennyson
Contact Us
Call Us
