Writing about my best high school Friend who died in 2011. I remember that I couldn't speak that day of his funeral at all because I was too traumatized by his death. Though I was polite to his family during the funeral I was dysfunctional from losing my best High School Friend.
Whereas Richard was the best friend in Church from 1954 when my parents were put in charge of the "I AM" Sanctuary on Hope Street in Los Angeles. They were in charge of this church from 1954 until 1960 when I was 12 years old. So, I met Richard when I was 6 and he was likely 8 or 9 years old. He was from a very wealthy family and so he was funneled always towards college and I was from a more blue collar working tradesman family and though my parents both wanted me to go to college neither of them had been to college so college to them was sort of like a fairy tale that other people experienced but not them.
As we grew older and I was about 12 years old I remember climbing up into his tree house in his mother's 2nd home in Mt. Shasta. It was about this time that he began to tell me jokes and begin talking to me about Philosophy. This combination of jokes and philosophy moved me towards a more scientific way of thinking which was both mechanistic and electronic and interested in Space Travel and the like.
I always wanted to know more about everything technical. How were jet engines made? How did they work? How did car and truck and gasoline and diesel engines work? How were they built? Though Richard was more of a white collar thinker and less of a blue collar more practical thinker like me what we shared was our humor and our interest in living here on earth and exploring the whole world in our future which we both did on our own. He told me about his trip to China eventually and told me about his trip to Spain, etc. And I eventually told him about my trip to Asia with my wife and Children where we spent about 4 months in India and Nepal (about 2 months each country) and also about 2 weeks in Thailand before all this getting used to being about 12 hours or more time difference from California and snorkeling at Koi Samed Island near Bangkok.
Eventually, Richard got his teaching credential and his Master's degree in Psychology and he taught High School in Los Angeles in a difficult neighborhood on purpose partly because he was a conscientious objector to fighting in Viet Nam and felt he had to do service the rest of his life for being allowed to live through all that. So, he devoted himself to teaching underprivileged kids for about 40 years or so of his life until he died unexpectedly at around age 62 in 2006.
Richard was a very good friend and encouraged me to marry my present wife in 1995 and was one of my 2 best men at my wedding in Yosemite National Park then. Though I'm still alive here at 75 partly because of the amazing woman I married then in 1995, he was the one who said to me: "If you don't marry her Fred, I will!" which was sort of a joke between us as friends because I knew he likely meant this. But, he realized that my present wife was a "Keeper" and he was right. And so because of my friend I'm still okay but he is now gone. So, I honor my friend here by writing this about him today.
By God's Grace
Note: MY two best friends from childhood (before high school) are now dead and to some degree I'm alone because of this in life. I still have a cousin who is 80 with a big family and I have my 3 biological children and my wife and an adopted daughter and two grandchildren. But, it's hard to go on without your peer touchstones from your childhood in life. However, I have a friend that I started climbing mountains with and skiing with in 1969. He is still alive and going strong. So, at least I have one good friend from the old days still here in 2023. He and his girlfriend went with my wife and I to Maui and Kauai last October by the way. So, life is still good!
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