( Held at Ray Wilsons home in Thousand Oaks, CA on Saturday August 6, 2016 )
We’re here to celebrate and remember the life of Rick Williams who passed away on May 3rd, 2012 in Walla Walla, Washington. He was born January 17, 1957… he was 55 years old. He left us far too soon.
I have to admit I am a bit mad at him for not being here with us… and I think he’s probably bit mad at himself wherever he is.
But we’re here to remember Rick… so we should do what he would have wanted. And he would not want us to be sad, or angry, or hurt… he’d want us to laugh and enjoy being together. Rick really loved to laugh, he loved his friends, he loved Donna, and adored his kids David and Gaby. So I hope today we can all share some stories about Rick because… there are lots of stories.
But before we get to that I’d like say a few words.
I can’t think of my childhood and growing up without thinking my fried Rick. From my earliest recollections Rick was my constant companion along with my brother and sister growing up. From 4th grade all the way through high school we went to school together and came home together. He was either at my house, or I was at his house. We biked through the neighborhoods to visit my grandma who would give us money for ice cream at Swensen’s, or we’d bike into Thousand Oaks for an Italian submarine sandwich at Bauduccos Deli. We’d make forts in homes still under construction in Westlake’s First Neighborhood using discarded refrigerator boxes and washing machine boxes. We’d play endless games of tag on the green belts and we’d challenge anyone who would play us to a game of 2v2 football. We’d exploring in the undeveloped hills behind Westlake Village. We’d go fishing in the man-made lake and go hunting with homemade sling shots. We played “hide and go seek” at his house for hours and well into the night. It was a wonderful childhood and Rick was my partner in mischief, my brother from another mother, and my closest friend.
Things were not always wonderful at home for Rick though. Rick struggled in school and was oftn in trouble with his parents. As a kid Rick could never sit still. Looking back Rick probably had a learning disability like ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), or Dyslexia, or any number of other things that today would be diagnosed and treated. But in the late 1960’s and early Seventies, you were either smart or you were the opposite. And to compound matter Ricks brother and sister, Janice and Ron, were straight A students… both taking after their parents who expected the same of Rick. And so Rick a bit of an outcast in his own home… and rightly, or wrongly, felt that he was a disappointment to his parents and siblings.
So Rick as a child never read much, didn’t focus on school and didn’t expect much of himself academically. But Rick did have a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor… which was sharp, and quick and extremely funny. And of course the great irony in all of this is that Rick was actually very intelligent… his friends would say brilliant. He loved puzzles and untying knots. Whether it was tangled fishing line, kite string or my shoes… I would just give it to him and he’d unravel it. He could figure out anything mechanical. And he had a great ear for music… he had very sophisticated musical tastes at a young age… he liked the blues, Led Zeplin, Yes, and the Rolling Stone decades before I did. And he had a sharp and quick wit… and the delivery of a stand-up comedian. Most of us didn’t even try to keep up with the speed of his banter or the biting wit of his comebacks or asides.
Rick was also an amazing athlete. He was small and thin… but he ran like the wind. He had great hands and could catch anything running a full sprint. And he was acrobatic He could do things on the high bar that no one in 4th or 5th grade could do… fully laid out giants and flip dismounts. He could perform a standing flip. He had no fear of heights and once walked across a 20 foot block walls just to see if he could do it. And even with all these physical gifts that his friends marveled at… I never once heard him brag about it. As fate would have it Rick stayed small until his junior year of high school. He was 5’2” as a freshmen. He caught up with me at 5’9” in the later part of our junior year when he was 17. He then went on to grow 4 more inches in the next 2 years. He matured too late to play high school sports. But after high school Rick became an elite volleyball player with a ridiculous 40 inch vertical leap… playing with nationally ranked players in a Los Angeles men’s league. He was even offered a scholarship to play in college which he never pursued.
Now my Dad had a similar youth… he struggled in school… but was smart in other ways and was a great athlete. He and Rick hit it off from the very start and were lifelong friends. In fact Rick was fast friends with every person and family member that I’ve ever been close to… my Mom, my Dad, my Sister, my Brother, friends, cousins… he embraced my wife Deborah from the first time he met her, and treated my children like they were his long lost best friends.
Rick had a natural warmth about him… and he was a really good listener. He had an easy way of connecting with people that was genuine and disarming. He was also unusually open and mature about his feelings. If you hurt his feeling he’d tell you. If he was sad about something or insecure about something… he’d tell you.
Anyway... my father understood Rick and appreciated him. On a couple of occasions my Dad intervened on Rick’s behalf with his parents. One such occasion was in 1969… when our flag football team, the 49ers, were about to play for the championship. Rick was our star running back… and my Dad was the coach. As I remember it… he got in trouble because of a poor progress report, or some other legitimate reason. Rick got in trouble a lot back then with his parents. So his parents decided to teach him a lesson and ground him for the championship game. This was devastating to Rick as well as friends on the team. So after a great deal of deliberation my father called Ricks Dad the night before the game… and Rick played the championship game the next day. Rick ran for two touchdowns and we won… and it was one of Rick’s great sports memories. He cherished that trophy.
Rick did the same for my father years later. My father was an alcoholic… and his illness became worse during our high school years. Rick always treated my father with respect and as a friend… regardless of my Dads condition. In high school Rick grew his hair out… it was long blond hair that some girls might even be envious of. My Dad hated long hair. It didn’t help that my father was bald since his early twenties. So my Dad, in his weaker moments, would say things like “Rick you look like a girl.” To which Rick would respond… “Well would you rather that your son have no date at all!” Or my Dad would often say “Hey Rick where’s our skirt?” and for this Rick had a variety of replies like: a) it’s in the dryer, or, b) my mom hasn’t ironed yet, or c) it doesn’t go with these shoes.
My Dad loved Rick’s comebacks. It was typical Rick… he was funny and disarming… and there just wasn’t anything mean about him. Then again Rick did find it highly amusing when I would get hurt or find myself in an embarrassing situation. Like when I went flying over my bike while racing down a hill - he thought it was hilarious. The fact that my fall resulted in sliding ten feet and several stitches on my chin was incidental to his amusement. And if I got called on to speak in Spanish class in Middle School (I was terrible at Spanish and terrified of public speaking) Rick loved watching me squirm and even encouraged the teacher to call on me more. This often back fired on him… leading him to be called on. Regardless I’d wrestle him to the ground after class, pin him and flick his ears and nose… to which he had little defense since Rick was smaller and lighters than I was. To defend himself Rick would hit me in the shins… which he discovered was a chink in my armor after being manhandled so many times before. And even later on in our high school years when he was bigger and stronger… when we’d wrestle he’d never try to take me down… he’ just dive for my legs and try to womp on my shins.
Rick and I talked a lot during the last could years of his life. We came up to Santa Barbara with David and Gaby to watch a couple of my son’s soccer games when he was playing at UCSB. Rick adored Donna and thought David and Gaby were perfect. He loved how smart, and strong and capable they were and believed that they could aspired to anything they dreamed of. His children and Donna were the very best part of his life and what he was most proud of.
Rick and I had a thing we would do… it started with the advent of phone messaging machines. It’s hard to believe that phone answering machines, computers and calculators at one time didn’t exist. It started when one of us took up all the memory on the answering machine while leaving a message. As a joke we started doing this on purpose...leaving rambling messages until the memory ran out. I can’t remember a time we didn’t do this… and sometimes I’d purposely not answer his phone calls to just to force him into leaving a long, meandering, stream of consciousness message that would usually end in “I just called to say hi… call me back.” I still have the last message he left to me before he passed away… and it still makes me laugh though watered eyes.
This is mostly all I had to say. You really can’t sum up a person’s life. It’s much too big. And few of us can know the challenges faced and the demons fought, in the private solitude of another’s life. Anyone that was friends with Rick knew that he sometimes struggled with "flight or fright" in the face of tough situations and decisions… just like the rest of us. But he unlike most of us had this larger than life quality... he almost had a mythic quality about him. Weird and crazy stuff just happened to him… and sometimes we were part of it as his friends. I guess It was partly that he was so unusually inquisitive and he always wanted to be doing something... anything… and it was partly some questionable and creative decision making on his part. Needless to say there are lots of stories about him.
Thank you all for coming and taking the time to help us remember Rick. I’m hoping we can all stay for a little bit and maybe share share some stories together about Rick. I’ve list a few that
I know: