Richard

I first met Richard in the winter of 2013. I had seen him around town but I don’t think I would have ever gotten to know him had it not been for Barbara’s passing. I got a call from Madame Chinchilla that Barbara had had a heart attack and died in her sleep. After I got that phone call I went down to her apartment and it was there that I began to meet her inner circle, a small grouping of friends and hell raisers she pretty much kept secret from me, a group that included the gnomish Cal, his hardworking wife Mari, her long lost lover Richard and a number of other denizens of Fort Bragg. A day or so later Barbara’s daughter Frieda flew into town from Michigan, followed by the rest of her children. Over the six months or so that I got to know Barbara I never met any of her close confederates. We talked about artists she knew but the closest I ever got to meeting them was the art works I purchased from local second hand stores. But after she passed the doors of her life slowly opened, Only because she lived directly above  her I got to meet Madame Chinchilla and her husband Mr. G, both renowned tattoo artists, and through them Heather, the daughter of Larry Spring, curator of all sorts of wonderful and eccentric natural phenomena.

But it was meeting Richard that seemed to tie everything together. Richard had a big heart and was well known throughout the town and the region. He was an outdoorsman, a fisherman, a cannabis connoisseur, a motorcyclist, a regular stool warmer at the Tip Top Lounge, generally a very interesting man to know. Richard was one of those guys I would see around town and since he seemed to know everyone in Fort Bragg I got to meet many folks that I might not otherwise gotten to in the course of my librarian duties.

Barbara was still Richard’s die-hard flame at her passing. I never met a man take a woman’s death as hard as he took Barbara’s. At the time I felt it was important to not only help her friends clean out her house but to also bring together Richard and her family for supper at my place, a follow up to the throwing of her ashes on 10 Mile Beach. It was then that I found out what a mota head Richard was, as those world class bombers of his kept on rolling out of my living room that night well past the time that dinner was gone and the table was cleared, I smoked with him and his paramour’s kids that night till I was senseless. I am sure that if had had the time I would have smoked with them till I was straight again.

And while we launched our acquaintanceship just fine we never really got together the way I thought we would.. I ran into him once at a party at Cal's and asked him if he wanted to take some of Barbara’s artwork off my hands and he said sure. A few days later I dropped off the work, a large collection of collages and postcards she had culled from a collection of work she had for sale at a local gallery. He had, at that time, a sort of memorial going on in his apartment in her honor that I got a chance to see, and I must say that it awed, stunned and humbled me all at the same time. The funny thing was that he was living in an apartment that I thought of renting after I got into town. When I saw him in his digs I felt it was one of those cosmic things, that I passed up the place, as the apartment suited him just fine. It was never meant for me, apparently.

I saw Richard a couple times after that: once, while I was out grocery shopping with my boy at the local Safeway.. He had just gotten an additional face tattoo, one that continued to commemorate his late son’s passing. We talked awhile and made plans to get together again soon but somehow never made it happen. I think it was around that time we both met the women that we were destined to be with because not too long after the Safeway meet I ran into him again, well, saw him outside of the Tip Top, snogging with his gal. I saw a photo of them in the newspaper the other day and sure enough, there he was, with the love of his life, his now wife Sherie.

An tale of the tragedy in the Fort Bragg Advocate, a request for funds to help with funeral expenses in Go Fund Me. What a hell of way to run into you again, Richard. Noyo Harbor is a bitch to get in and out of, even in good weather. I can’t even begin to imagine what was in your mind when the three of you hit the water to swim back to shore that night. I know the waves must have been hitting you hard, and man, it must have been bitter cold, too. The Pacific in winter time is unforgiving, it will take a younger, heartier man down in minutes. Richard, you were 67. What the hell were you thinking? Ah, you must have been thinking "I have to help save my friends", that much I do know, because they survived. They had life jackets on. Were there enough to go around?

Did you sacrifice yourself for your friends? Knowing you and your big heart, you just might have that night.

Fort Bragg will be a different place without you, Richard, that's for sure. Seems that it's time for you to join your boy and Barbara. Smile down on us and while you’re doing that, go roll up a bomber of that wild weed of yours. When the clouds come rolling into Fort Bragg then I’ll know it’s you, blowing that great dope of yours into the wind.

Rest in peace.

Salud!

Hell of a way to end a year. Sorry to see you go, Richard!
http://www.advocate-news.com/general-news/20170101/two-saved-ocean-claims-one-after-boat-overturns

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/6505999-181/details-emerge-about-death-at?artslide=0

A well written story by Rex Gresset, eternal Fort Bragg City Council Candidate:
http://theava.com/archives/64222

Larry Spring's museum!
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/larry-spring-school-common-sense-physics

The Triangle Tattoo!
http://www.triangletattoo.com/