Wednesday, December 11, 2013
As high school students and for some years beyond until I moved across country, Rick and I spent a lot of time together. Much of that was driven by my emerging interest in music and his (it seemed at the time) vastly superior musical knowledge and experience. From him, I also learned a lot of do-it-yourself type of electronic repairs for the 70s era musical equipment we were using and I watched without completely understanding as he followed his third passion of developing film in his homemade darkroom. We played in some bands and went in together on buying several pieces of equipment. Because of alphabetical listing, we sat next to each other at high school graduation, laughing at the whole thing, and we both played "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" at the ceremony. (How did we pick such a cheesy piece of junk as our class song?) I remember riding home once in the early morning hours with Rick from a gig. We were tired, thinking about having to unload, and talking about how much the equipment in the back of the truck must weigh. On impulse, he decided to whip into a truck weigh station on the interstate. It turned out that we had 'way too much stuff loaded in our small truck and the officer made Rick go inside the station and GAVE HIM A TICKET for being overloaded! He was fuming, I was laughing, and I made sure that he never forgot how curiosity had gotten him into trouble. We married girls who were high school friends, I stood with him at his wedding and he with me, I got drunk at his reception but he did not return the courtesy at mine. Unfortunately, as a result of my moving around and following schooling and a career, we drifted apart and had not spoken for many years. It was truly my loss. RIP my friend. You will continue to live in my mind, my memory, and my heart.
