Friday, July 28, 2017

A DEAR FRIEND HAS DIED---HE WAS A GENIUS

I TOLD YOU ABOUT HIM SOME YEARS AGO: CLICK HERE


Here he is reading a bit of poetry he's written On a portable stage he built.  Later he performed a one hour concert of Sinatra songs.


He and I built an (impossible?) desert dancefloor at Quartzsite, Az for the amusement of our rv club the Wandering Individual's Network. It worked beqautifully--for a hundred folks for 2 weeks. Here he's testing it with a passer by Donna.

A year or so ago I was privledged to be best man at his wedding to a wonderful Thai Lady.

RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES:  Please click on the link above to learn more about this amazingly creative personality. He died last Sunday (July 23 at age 69, I think of heart trouble).

On his last birthday I dashed off this poem celebrating inventors and sent it to him.
 I SING THE GLORY OF INVENTORS

They lift us up from savagery
beginning perhaps that day we broke a rock
and noticed one sharp edge
that scraped meat away from bone;
The whole tribe learned the trick.
Then we learned to work the stone
on both sides of the edge
and knives were born;spears and spear points;
bows and arrows and more,
stepping us up
from scavenger to hunter.

One day noticing sparks from stone,
fire-making was born--
a giant leap up  that brought us down
from the trees  to safely sleep on the ground.

They showed us a thousnd ways to make shelter
from whatever was at hand.

Inventors were the first to notice noticed that mud
got hard in the fire.
pottery was born. Oh what a boon
to boil and bake, to store things and carry water.
Our nests got even cozier.
Designs in the mud
likely our first art.

Clothes from animal skins---on and on.
Like a stone set rolling downhill;
ever faster the inventors
lifted us to comfort and freedom.
And even glory.

While others prayed to invisible gods
for magic and luck and deliverance,
inventors thought-- and tinkered-- with tangible things
till from their workplace came
a new and better home.

They bless the world and build the stairs
we climb to the future.
Thank you is not enough.
Reverence is more appropriate.
Thank you Ron
You and your kind are heroes to humanity.


7 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry to hear that. - Nancy

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  2. Sorry for your loss. Kewl friends are such a blessing.

    later,
    -Moe

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  3. Sounds like a great friend!. Wish I could of met him. I am interested in the Pet Patio. I didn't find it on google search.










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  4. Randy, I am so sorry about your friend Ron. May he rest in peace.

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  6. Patty Coon1:37 PM

    That's my trailer in the background of the dance floor we all built at Quartzsite that year! I felt like I was punched in the heart when I heard that Ron passed away - heart attack, it seems. I will miss his smile, his sharp wit, his humor. I miss you, too! I will always remember the banter back and forth between you two - we called it the "Ron and Randy Show." It was like watching a verbal tennis match when you two got started talking. Makes me very sad to hear he's not with us anymore.

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  7. Thank you Patty ---I heartily agree. And I miss you too.

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