Ranger Rick

Thank you Anthony for your decision to put this in. My already high esteem for both you and Willis has increased another notch. And I am that much better for having read it.

Thanks for this post, w.

Thanks Anthony,
Every human deserves dignity. You have acknowledged Ranger Rick for that.

Everyone should know at least one ‘Ranger Rick’ during their life. Mine was named George Dickinson, the mayor of Wholand. As much a place in the mind as it was a physical location it was situated on the banks of the Housatonic River in Oxford, Connecticut. People like this are in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “Too weird to live and too rare to die.” If interested you can still, I believe, google George, Wholand and the characters he attracted to place you ‘can’t get to from here’.

Thanks.

Inhumanity starts when we think we are better than another, any other. To accept each other as unique and special allows all of us to be humane and gentle with one another. This “Human Interest” piece points that out with simplicity and grace.
Kudos to both Willis and Anthony
Mike

I have rarely read anything from Willis that did not both mezmorize me and make me think more deeply about life and all it brings. Many thanks, Willis.
And many thanks, Anthony, for publishing this piece. Outstanding.

A tale about human decency. Every now and then we need to hear things like this. You made the right decision. Thank you.

I think every life should have a “Ranger Rick” in it.
The scary thing when I think about it is that most of them I knew back in the day when conventional wisdom said they should all be locked up (the third I knew because all those places had been closed, I think). One of the other two would in today’s twisted world would probably be jailed and cause to have them take me away from my parents.
One was an old lady (I don’t really know how old) we called Leah, I don;t know anything about here except here house was small for the lot it was on and sat way back from the street. And the lot was pretty much weed-grown, and what little you could see of the inside looks in my mind’s eye like that of a hoarder in today’s TV world.
I know that kids would taunt her and that she would come out onto her front porch dressed in a faded green house dress with her stockings rolled down below her knees and scream at us.
I also know that if my mother had the vaguest suspicion that my brother or I had been a part of the taunting, the wrath of God would be upon us. An I know that my mother sometimes visited Leah with a pot of something to eat. I don’t know how many times or how often, mmy mother was careful that not much notice was made.
On the adjoining property property was what had started out as a 1-room cabin that had expanded by an dining room and a screened-in porch turned into a kitchen, and to the rear, a screened-in porch that was his bedroom. The must have been a bathroom, but I don.t remember it–there is a possibility that it was the small shed at the bottom of the property, I don’t think I’ve ever been it. His house was close to the street, so there was a large (for a city) lot behind that stretched down to Leah’s property line. That and the vacant lot beside he planted to all sorts of flowers and truck crops. He must have told us stories, but all I remember inside his house was trying to extract some large number of years worth of sand from under the rug in the living room, and watching him light his pipe by rolling a piece of newsprint into a tight cone that he set afire in the little wood stove in the front room (or was it in the arch between front and dining rooms?) of by the pilot light of the old gas stove in the kitchen.
The third (and I’m sorry to say, last} was a pan handler I’d see often as I walked to the train station in the evening. He kept a running patter going, that often made no sense, He sat with a big loveable dog (might have been a Pitbull–that was long before I learned that I was supposed to hate them). I teased the dog about hanging around with the guy so long he was beginning to look like him,
The patter was usually cheerful and entertaining so I gave him money from time to time–seemed only fair. Then one day he disappeared.
A long time later, I had moved along, I happened to see him–asked about the dog, which he pointed to under a car in the shade. Asked him where he had been–he said he’d gotten sick, so he pissed on a cops shoes to get a bath, some clean clothes and a trip to the county hospital.

I also grew up in rural areas with nearby small town, seems we all had a “Mayor of Occidental”.
To me, the take away is the fact that when left to their own devices, people find ways to take care of each other without the intervention some state or federal bureaucracy. Things did not go well for Ranger Rick, but for some that is the price of free agency.

I toured the redwood empire North of San Francisco, got lost and ended up in Occidental. Lovely town. Does not surprise me that you treated Rick as you did.
What does surprise me is that I got a real Hippy Marin County vibe off it. Not where I would have expected you to reside, Willis.
Then again, it is a bit ironic that Anthony hails form Chico.
Both hotbeds of liberal thought if I am not mistaken.
Having said that, a lovely tribute and hopefully the link will be passed around the community and some of the good citizens will come back.
40 Shades

At this particular time, we really needed this story. It was sad, yet very refreshing at the same time. Thank you Willis and Anthony.

Thanks for posting this, a real gem. RIP Rick.
Spangled drongo – I think you are right. Long before I went on a mountain-biking trip with my brother to Moab, I read a good guidebook which mentioned an old guy who lived on the edge of the town, and was also a little bit ‘out there’. I think he came to the town in the 1950s when the uranium mines first opened. I forgot about this, and then after a few days in the town an old guy on a push bike [on which he seemed to carry most of his possessions and his two dogs], came out of the darkness, stopped and started talking to us. Long afterwards I remembered the book and it clicked who he must have been. There are some great trails around Moab, amazing geology and scenery, but meeting and talking with the old boy was a privilege. I hope he is still going strong today, but fear not.

Great tale well told, Willis – when you’re on nobody’s better. Reminds me very much of the Ranger Ricks that have come and gone in my own life. Hopefully most people have the opportunity to share the world with these free spirits and recognize it for the gift it can be.

Thanks for the story Willis. A good reminder of the value in all, and that we’re all, without exception, drifting, floating, tumbling, slipping and sliding toward that event horizon and that when we encounter folks like Rick (עליו השלום / alav ha-shalom), we should remember the line, “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

Thanks for posting, it literally brought a tear to my eye. I said a short prayer for Ranger Rick. RIP.

There was once an Emperor of San Francisco! His name was Norton I.
http://sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/n/nortonJoshua.html

Occidental? I lived in Graton for awhile, spent 12 years in Sonoma county all together. I almost rented a place near Occidental. When I saw the title to this article, I thought it was a coincidence. Very sad news, may Ranger Rick rest in peace. OTH, it’s nice to hear about places in the world were people still have a heart. It gives me hope.

A dewdrop in a desert — thank you, Willis (and Anthony for being perceptive in knowing what is in the public interest and the public soul to publish it).

Thank you so much Willis. How many of us have a story to tell like Willis? Here is mine, a eulogy I wrote for my Uncle David, a man with whom I had never exchanged a word. But it was really for my father, a man who taught us over and over again the value of humans who have no apparent value. Willis and mods feel free to leave this out if it is too long winded.
“Uncle David was born February 25, 1927 in Tehema County and died August 28, 2007 in Riverside. He was 80 years old. He was preceded in death by Aunt Roberta, in 1919, Uncle Bill, in 1943, Uncle Bob in 1944 and Aunt Evelyn in 1991.
As Dad and I talked about this time of remembering, he mentioned a verse of scripture that he thought was appropriate from Ecclesiastes.
1 A good name is better than a good ointment,
And the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.
2 It is better to go to a house of mourning
Than to go to a house of feasting,
Because that is the end of every man,
And the living takes it to heart.
Now you could look at those verses and say that King Solomon had a bad day with 20 or 30 of his wives and was worn out. Or we could just assume that he was just being jaded and cynical. But I think there is vast truth here that applies to Uncle David.
Life wasn’t easy, even from the beginning. How many of us would liked to be named Just. Because that was his name. Just David Hull.
I remember speculation in my youth that was even voiced about where that name came from. Some suggestions were humorous in nature, like the adding of Enough to Robert Lester Lee Hull. But it wasn’t always humorous.
I remember a time we went to visit David in the hospital at Napa, and the nurse was calling out for Just, Just, Just come get your pills. And I remember dad becoming angry that they didn’t care enough to know that he had always been called David. And I’m sure that many of us wondered whatever got into Grandma to name her son Just. It seemed mean, or cruel, or unfeeling. Like the Hogg family naming their daughters Ima and Ura…but maybe not.
Eleanor Porter wrote a book, published in 1916, called “Just David”. And it’s the story of a boy who struggled to fit in. A boy who went his own way. A boy who was gifted yet left on his own after his mother and father died. He was a boy, though, who through the training he had received and the God given talent that he had, was able to succeed in his life. And I have to believe that Grandma wanted those things for her boy.
But David wasn’t destined to achieve great things. He struggled, just to keep up, much less get ahead. He could be frustrating to an older brother or sister, because he would never walk alongside, or scurry to the front. He was always lagging behind and forcing you to turn around to see if he was still there, or if he had wandered off somewhere.
He struggled in his school work. In fact, for a time, because he was falling so far behind, he went to live with Aunt Alma and receive special tutoring while he attended, just up above the ranch, at the old Philips school house. He wasn’t one to be involved much with his older brothers he just kind of kept quiet. One of those kids who is so hard to reach.
And then, the world he did know began to fall apart. His oldest brothers were gone to college and then into the army…because World War II was underway. He was there when his older brother, home on leave, attacked his drunken father for striking their mother. He was there through the escalating family abuse and alcoholism that was tearing at the very structure of the family.
But things got worse. His closest, dearest brother had to leave too. The war was raging around the world and the two blue stars became three as dad went off to the Air Corps to join his brothers in the fight. And David was there when word came that his oldest brother was gone…never to return.
Dad came home on leave to grieve with the family over the loss and David, more withdrawn and harder to reach, was struggling with all that confronted him. And there, in that saddest of times, Dad was able to reach him for (as far as we know) the last time in his life. He went to David and said these simple words, “I love you, David.” And the tears poured down David’s cheeks as the message got through the times of sorrow and bitterness to a troubled, heartbroken young man.
Uncle David was not destined to spend a lifetime thrilling crowds with musical virtuosity. Not destined to dazzle the Nobel committee with his scientific genius. Not destined to win applause for heroism or self-sacrifice. He was destined to be Just David and spend more than sixty years in institutions until finally he was freed forever on August the twenty-eighth.
Dad, you said to me when we went to LA to see him for the last time, “This is end of a long sad journey”. And in one sense it was. And I think I understand why you were drawn to the words of Solomon when he said, the “day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth”. But I think you can be comforted with your many times of going to see someone who didn’t respond, who often times didn’t even know you and yet you went anyway. You were unashamed of a brother who was in a mental hospital and prone to violence. Taking us, showing us, that you loved him before and that you would not and could not stop loving him for his whole life. What honor and recognition you heaped on him, to your own praise, because he was your brother…and you loved him. And you were determined that he would always be your brother. Loved and cared for to the end by a brother who wouldn’t let him be, just David.”

It strikes me that the professional “caring” types – emphatically those on various government payrolls, direct or at some grant-seeking NGO’s remove – never want such eccentrics to be left under their own respective vine and fig tree, and concentrate fiercely upon their victims’ psychiatrization to ensure that the critters in question get “properly medicated” by way of the pharma industry’s blockbuster nostrums, emphasis on the neuroleptics and the mood stabilizers.
Having dealt over the decades with the medical problems of these mentally disabled but largely harmless folk (for such is invariably the job of us lowest-on-the-pay-scale primary care grunts), I’ve gotten to know perhaps more than my share of “Ranger Rick” types as well as more than I like of the professional “carers.”
As civil government intrudes more and more into the private lives of all Americans – for our own good, it’s always argued – I get the impression that our society is less and less interpersonally connected, with people becoming almost completely unfamiliar with the lives of those around them, insulated each from the other by thickening layers of bureaucracy which desensitize us to the needs of our neighbors while denying us knowledge of our responsibilities as well as understanding of our ability to act purposefully and effectively in aid thereof.
I can’t help but think that while this is not a matter of planned policy, the effect is very pleasing to the career politicians who batten upon our loss of genuine community and the increasing vulnerability that loss imposes upon us as a people.

WILLIS: I would like to know what is your basis for this love of your neighbor/friend? Is it some “feeling?” Is it some “”religion?”
It is definitely right, IMHO, but I am very interested in JUST WHY YOU think it is important to discuss the crazy man here?

A great story – and perhaps a good lesson, especially now. One about being more accepting, setting asides differences and peculiarities, agreeing to disagree and understanding that being different isn’t always bad ….
Our AGW opponents could use a good dose of that today – but so can we all at times.
This story is particularly special to me, as we had our own Ranger Rick as I grew up. He too was from a slightly different planet at times, and was, like Ranger Rick, our local ambassador, honorary mayor, and ultimately, famous resident celebrity.
His name was Jim. Although he had some developmental disabilities he was friendly and often sharp as a tack. He would patrol the city, and got to where he knew most locals, adults and children alike, by name. The community adopted Jim, and made sure he was taken care of and treated well. An acquaintance of mine decided Jim needed business cards, as the official “Roving Ambassador” to the city. From that day he never left home without a stack. Gave him a I think real sense of worth and pride. That simple gesture, was really a repayment to his loyalty and kindness to the community. There were many others along the way, who tried to repay the commitment he made, and service he gave, to the community..
When his family passed away locals stepped in again. Jim needed a responsible adult to escape the care home every day – and a local resident made sure that happened every day.
Jim, as it sounds so to did Ranger Rick, touched a lotta folks lives – most in ways they never realized. Even today, while I haven’t thought of him for years, I remember him with a smile and certain fondness.
One day in June of ’64, as he told the story, Jim snuck into the crowd of about 300 at Big Reggies Danceland to catch a bit of the band. Playing that day was a cat named Mick and his new band the Rolling Stones.
The next day at Bacon’s Drug store, Mick was having a prescription filled, and Jim ran into him again in line at the soda fountain. Jim ordered a cherry coke, but they told him they were outta cherry syrup, and Jim told Mick it was ok, that “you can’t always get what you want.”
Several years later Mick would do the song “You can’t Always get What You Want” – which included lyrics of “went down to the drugstore … to get my prescription filled … was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy … decided that we would have a soda … My favorite flavor, cherry red … I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy … I said to him …You can’t always get what you want.”
Mick has never commented to my knowledge. Mr. Jimmy was at Mick Jaggers next concert in the Twin Cities. Long after I once had a chance and asked him personally,d he just smiled and said – “you can’t always get what you want.”
Some have tried to debunk Mr. Jimmy’s story, but he was unwavering for 40+ years. Some said it had to be true – that Jimmy wasn’t capable of making it up – and I always thought that at the time too. Today I’m not so sure – Mr. Jimmy always had a wry smile, and sometimes a keen sense of humor.
What I do know for sure is he did see Jagger then, was at the next Rolling Stones show, and the lyrics all fit. Unlikely, but just maybe Mr Jimmy did pull one over on us. No one care though, as the story – true or not – perfectly fits who and what Mr Jimmy was … its completely believable it could have happened that way. I guess in a way that’s all we really “need.”
And that is the lesson Ranger Rick and “Mister Jimmy” types can teach us …through their simple lives – their acceptance of, and giving to, others … you can’t always get what you want … sometimes you get what you need …
Mr Jimmy passed away peacefully in 2007 after a long struggle with diabetes. Like I imagine Ranger Rick’s, his memory has a permanent place in the local history and hearts.
Thanks for the post reminding me of this Willis.

Se I wrote I couldn”t type. Try Anthony.

I’m thinking there were enough in Southern California that we might all have been remembering different ones.

Tucci78 said @ February 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm

It strikes me that the professional “caring” types – emphatically those on various government payrolls, direct or at some grant-seeking NGO’s remove – never want such eccentrics to be left under their own respective vine and fig tree, and concentrate fiercely upon their victims’ psychiatrization to ensure that the critters in question get “properly medicated” by way of the pharma industry’s blockbuster nostrums, emphasis on the neuroleptics and the mood stabilizers.

Never say never Tucci78. My very good friend Jerry from San Francisco worked for many years to achieve as much freedom and independence as possible for the mentally ill with considerable success. He didn’t prescribe drugs, preferring to teach them how to meditate. He’s dying now and I am going to miss him very badly.
Thanks for the story Willis. Living in a rural community we have our share of Ranger Ricks and yes, we care for them. Never got around to making one a mayor though. I host a story about our Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress from a few years ago, both now sadly deceased.

I think the community treatment of both Crazy Billy and Ranger Rick is a function of “community size”. In my experience, individuals everywhere and on average tend to be kind and compassionate in their one-on-one dealings with other individuals. Small communities generally replicate individual values and behavior in that regard. Institutional behavior is a different matter entirely and so is individual behavior within the context of an institution.
Large communities inevitably institutionalize most everything, including the care, shelter and feeding of “the crazy ones”. Individuals in such an institutionalized community cease to feel personally responsible for those less fortunate. They rationally suppose (and are assured) that others are being paid with their tax dollars to handle such matters and if they see evidence said affairs are not being properly handled, individuals respond with anger toward the responsible institution rather than compassion and direct assistance for “the crazy ones”.
Big cities suck! But that’s where fame, fortune and most jobs reside.

Thanks Willis, yes it was moving. And thank you Anthony for posting this.
I can’t but think if Occidental had a couple of leftard knowalls, they would have wanted to “help” Rick by mandating the town to “provide” this that and the other for him, for his benefit of course….of course.

Thanks for sharing.

Willis Eschenbach said @ February 26, 2012 at 8:52 pm

Not sure if this answers your question, but like I said, jae, I generally just choose a path and take it without much pondering the whys and the wherefores. From my perspective, Rick died, and I chose to write about it, and not much happened in between …

Dunno about you Willis, but for me and several writers I know, writing is (poor analogy) akin to scratching an itch. You don’t seem to have much in the way of choice. I often enough wake in the early hours of the morning and it’s as if I’m being dragged to the keyboard. But that’s more of a what than a why. And I refrained from using my usual analogy ‘cos it’s a bit TMI.
Hope you enjoyed the story about Bronco.

Thanks for this post. Great story, and a nice break from all the climate craziness of the last two weeks. Thanks also for having the wisdom not to try and turn the post into some stretched and strained commentary or analogy on climate stuff — just acknowledge that it’s got nothing to do with it and move on — the story is about society and about life.
Thanks for sharing.

This was a nice memorial to an interesting charcter.
Well done.

In Russia every village, and virtually every quarter in a big city has its own “beloved drunk” who gets fed, helped, talked to, given money, etc. Very kind of the Russians, you would think. But it doesn’t help their society as a whole, and the same “kind” Russians would beat black and blue somebody who does better than they do, looks cleaner, talks in more literate way, or shows some education. If they can, they would burn your house if it looks nicer than their dirty houses.
It is better, of course, to have some kind of a traditional ancient kindness than none. However, kindness toward “the lowest of the low,” characteristic of any savage Medieval and Oriental society, is often a form of feeling better about yourself without doing much. Something akin to watching horror movies in order to come out from the movie theater and feel a relief: your life is not that bad!
I know, I know. I am a “poisonous worm spreading around vile ideas,” as Mr. Eschenbach put it so kindly. A specialist in kindness, Mr. Eschenbach, isn’t he?

Maybe we should think about Gleick in this context. A ‘genius’ who has suddenly become self destructive. There is a scientist in the man, it may be deeply hidden but I think its still theie Maybe, just maybe Gleick has had a revelation that his entire world view was predicated on lies. Depressed people often become self destructive and a little compassion in our comments may be in order. Sorry if it sounds like psycobabble, but Its the way I feel anyway…people are just people.

BEN ARONOFF’s photo of RIck Kaufman above should be nominated for whatever portrait photography prizes are going. He has captured the essence of a man who had lived a pretty hard life, but did so with a sense of humour and kindness.

Hari Seldon says:
February 27, 2012 at 12:36 am
[“……………………………………..”]
I alway thought a “genus” was smarter than me 🙂
Do you understand the differences between compassion and false compassion?
One of the best explanations I’ve heard is by this man.
http://www.mikeadkins.com/article/bishop-fulton-sheen-on-false-compassionpart-i/
http://www.mikeadkins.com/article/bishop-fulton-sheen-on-false-compassionpart-ii/
Granted, the presentation is by a religious..but then again, I’ve been known to read NASA and IPCC reports. 🙂

My own Ranger Rick was called Siddy Martin. He had been seriously shell shocked in WW1 and spent his time between conducting bayonet charges on our local beach and picking up litter in our village and binning it. He often picked up things that were not left or lost, including my mothers bicycle on many occasions. He pushed his life along in a pram and lived in a galvanised tin shack with a stove in the middle and a hole in the roof for the smoke. We kids would join the bayonet charges across the beach, sometimes twenty of us with all the holiday people joining in. We used to go with father to dig up mothers bike from Siddys back garden, and redistribute all the other things he had collected. Father would give him a lift up the steep hill from the beach on his motorbike, with the pram towing behind.
Not many places left for the Siddys and Ranger Ricks.
(Add extra commas, dashes, and parenthesis to taste)

All too often I think that we forget the undeniable truth that it does not matter how smart you are (or not perhaps). What matters is how you apply this. You can choose to live a good life and do good things. Or you can choose to do bad things.
As a scientist for instance, you can choose to ignore evidence and sell your (scientific soul) as Gleick et al do and just like they say: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and boy is the slope slippery.
If you always attempt to do the right thing or attempt to always tell the truth and are willing to always admit to say you are wrong, then you will never back yourself into a corner like Glieck.
In this instance, that was his problem…he was not willing to admit defeat or that he was wrong. This is why the tale of Ranger Rick could be beneficial to him and others.
Here is a man who overcame everything and still did good and still made a name for himself in his corner of the world. We must all work within our own limitations. We are not all Gods and/or perfect. The first time you admit that and admit that you might be wrong, that is the first time you realize that you do make mistakes and that you might be wrong about your positions.
I think applying this story to the AGW scientists would go along those lines, but as a stand-alone story the story is powerful enough by itself to show that we can all accomplish quite a bit by ourselves within our own limitations. The secret is to realize our limitations but then to make a difference despite this. Then go that extra mile. It is never enough to just settle for par.
Great story of one of those people who make a difference but too often never get told. I would much rather hear about him then celebrities myself.

RIP Ranger Rick.
Thank you Willis and Anthony, and for the reminders from others of man’s humanity to man, which like hospitality I’ve found the world over.

Thank you, Willis and Anthony, for this memorial to Ranger Rick.
There’s one odd thing I recall about the ‘Ranger Rick’ who lived in my town.
He had a shopping trolley with his possessions in it, and the smallest of his dogs sat on top. His six other dogs, all scruffy, all grizzled, ranged freely around him. He daily went to the local market and got bones and things from the stall holders – for his dogs and himself.
There were a couple of other ‘Ranger Ricks’, and they all had one or more elderly dogs with them.
Now they are nowhere to be seen. I think our ‘caring’ bureaucratic society made them go into some home, give up their dogs – and thus hasten their deaths.
I think we’ll see fewer and fewer Ranger Ricks the bigger our social ‘service’ bureaucracies grow, the more our governments regulate everything in our lives, and the further society becomes citified and scared of ‘pollution’ from human beings like our Ranger Ricks and their dogs.
R.I.P.

Hi Willis,
Same kind of thing happened to me last week… http://tpdrsl.org/index.php/bloggo/tants-dead.
It’s sad when these characters go.
dak

Whenever Mr. Eschenbach finds an opinion or an observation that diverges from his own, he feels free to attack the person (never the opinion itself) in most unsavory fashion that would result in the immediate ban — except he is the only one on this forum who is never moderated.
“Occidental had Ranger Rick, and WUWT has Willis”: indeed.

Doris Lessing:
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about an old woman I got to know, particularly with reference to Alzheimer’s, a word we spray around fairly lightly. I knew her for six or seven years before she finally died when she was over ninety.
She was, in fact, a woman of low intelligence. She had a poor childhood and married because it was expected of her, Most of her adult life she was a waitress and adored her work. She was a completely social person — she danced and had a wonderful pub life — and this social satisfaction was what she wanted from life.
At the age of sixty-five she was given the sack from her job because she was too old. Shortly after that her husband died. She had no pension and she went to pieces. From having the restaurant, where she worked and where everybody knew and loved her and she had a lot of friends, she became an old woman alone in her room. She became a drunk. People round here told me about it, and at the time I got to know her, she was into her eighties and totally demoralised. Although by then she was no longer drinking so much, she was in a filthy condition and could hardly get out of the flat. What really interested me about this was not the side issues about social services and so on, it was that because she had never been anything else but a social person and couldn’t cope with being alone, she got more and more stupid when she was on her own. Whenever you went to see her, if she had been alone for twenty-four hours, you’d think she was demented. I’m sure any doctor would say she was suffering from ‘Alzheimer’s’ or senility or something, but I noticed that if she had two or three people in to talk to her for a while, the craziness left her. She made sense. Sense on a pretty low level, but it was sense.
The point about her not being intelligent is relevant because, although she had always been a stupid woman, when she was normal, she made sense, was lively and quite funny. But whenever the services hadn’t worked, and perhaps no one had seen her for two or three days, and I visited her, she was gone — totally senile again! This happened again and again, I would go and see her and, when I arrived, she would ramble and waffle. She didn’t know what time of day it was, what day of the week, or the year. But, by the timeI left, she would be making perfect sense again. She was properly herself. Now this seems to me terribly important. I cannot help but wonder how many old people are diagnosed as ill, or senile, when in fact they just need human contact.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16048004/Doris-Lessing-interview-Our-Collective-Cultural-Insanity

Thank you for this Willis.
I am living with my own ‘Ranger Rick’, as my wife has a degenerative disease that is affecting her mental capacity. It is not easy to deal with in any way, especially for our children. Often I question my choice to take on this burden, but neither of us knew the exact nature of the disease when we met, so the decision was an uninformed one.
Stories like these make it easier to bear, at least for myself. This is not any easy thing to share.

Michael Larkin says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:04 am
“I cannot help but wonder how many old people are diagnosed as ill, or senile, when in fact they just need human contact.”
In my profession I’ve found that dogs work very well to keep one grounded in reality. Old ladies too often prefer cats but cats they just don’t care enough one way or another.
Bottoms up,
Cliff

One of the things that bothers me about the ratcheting up of building codes and vendor regs etc is that it leaves no room for the marginal individual. To open a shop today you need to start with a pile of money and a lawyer. There are people who can keep it together running a junky car repair shop or selling stuff on the street, but not if you make them be all orderly and perfect. A perfect example happened decades ago in Chicago. There were lots of SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotels, which were perfect for a wino or slightly crazy person or someone down on their luck. But because this was where winos hung out and hookers brought johns, people wanted to clean them up, which means tear them down, which is what was done. That put people on the street, which is better because….well, it isn’t. Similarly, NYC has mandated that all cabs must have wheelchair access, which makes it much harder to make a living as a cabbie. Chicago has been waging war on street vendors and closed a famous flea market. So where are the marginal supposed to live and make some $?

[All are read. All are moderated. Robt]
This is so untrue it ain’t even funny.
Unless you apply to Willis special rules inapplicable to mere mortals, that is.

Lovely story of the man and his home, his friends. We have two locals that always would hang out in certain areas of town, they had ‘turf’ and many times, the local shopkeepers on the west side would fix up food for Mary who has since passed. Another fellow I would see further east was quiet, though would acknowledge (nod to) the usuals and my boss (subscribes to the paper where article on the man appeared) tells me he was given help via hospital care and is now on meds to help his condition. A veteran who maybe had seen too much, I don’t know he rarely spoke, just nodded. The only time I saw him out of his winter jacket, he was thin as a rail. So much hair and beard it was hard to see his face. At last he is well fed and feeling better. Thank you for your very human story of Ranger Rick and those who helped him.

You shouldn’t have agonised over it Anthony. Nonconformity and the tolerance of it is the skeptic way.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/love-is-simply-not-an-option/
Pointman

2nd time today WUWT gives me a lump in my throat. First was the LA award – massive congrats to Anthony, mods and commenters. 2nd this post. Wonderful + comments.
May as well make it three….

Thanks for everything.

Willis Eschenbach,
Don’t make me laugh. The fact that I quoted your dirty insults in a concise form doesn’t mean that you haven’t written those words. Do you really think that all who read what you write are accomplished fools?
You posted your insults, thereby breaking the rules of this forum, and then you denied it, and now you repeat them because you painted yourself in the corner. Yes, you lied. And you continue to lie. Do you hope, somehow, to exonerate yourself by repeating, again and again, your blunder?
The more you cavort, the more you foam at the mouth, the more you try to evade the truth that is staring in your face, the more you undermine your reputation.
Don’t be ridiculous. Be a man, and apologize.

BEN ARONOFF’s photo of RIck Kaufman above should be nominated for whatever portrait photography prizes are going. He has captured the essence of a man who had lived a pretty hard life, but did so with a sense of humour and kindness.
—–
THIS!!!! Spectacular pic, quite worthy. Helps capture the depth of this heartwarming story.

Hey Willis, Anthony… respect, guys! Willis, your your writing is a prism that allows little bits of humanity to sparkle.

Willis, thank you for all that.
I’ve been angry and upset with you since the night of the long scissors, but this has reminded me again of the Willis towards whom my heart really goes out. And more. I hear you reaching for the humanity buried under the avalanche of his own filthy bloodied hands, his own stupidity, his own guilt, and the shock and prying eyes of others, that is Gleick now. Could it have been you or me? Or is compassion missing the mark because Gleick is still looking for his chance to back-stab again?
Much Madness is divinest Sense –
To a discerning Eye –
Much Sense – the starkest Madness –
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail –
Assent – and you are sane –
Demur – you’re straightway dangerous –
And handled with a Chain –
(Emily Dickinson 1862)

“But again … where is the crime in any of that?”
If you can allow a man to sup from your table at no cost to him and smile lovingly to his face while he calls for your casting into the bowels of Hell then why does it upset you when he stirs his tea anti-clockwise?
Who decides when ‘dirty-dishes’ (sic) become cutely eccentric or life-threatening?

This was a moving story and it touched me especially because as I drove to work this morning I could almost feel the collective intake of breath when a man rang in to the local radio station and expressed his concern that he had not seen “Tarzan” for about twelve months. Suddenly all the listeners would have worried that perhaps “Tarzan,” an ageing man, had succumbed to illness or disease and left this mortal coil. You see “Tarzan” was known by so many as the bare chested eccentric who travelled, often at a run, the Bruce highway between Cairns and Townsville; Hessian sack over his shoulder ,down and back he would go, a symbol to many of the quirky and enduring quality of the human spirit. There are any number of legends and myths surrounding “Tarzan’s” background, is he the lost heir of a European royal house, is he an ex Olympian, muscles honed by years of training, or is he an ex lawyer escaping the excesses of a fallible mankind?
Whatever he was, he is now part of the fabric of this region. As wise people have said before, you can tell a lot about a town by the way it treats it’s “eccentrics” and I think the people of Cairns are happy to know that someone like “Tarzan” is content to live on the margin of our community.
I think there would have been collective sigh of relief when, ten minutes later, a woman rang in and said she had seen “Tarzan” only a few weeks ago walking down Mulgrave road near Earlville.
I continued my drive to work with a small smile on my face. Life is good.

“It will not work with me…it will never end before you apologize. You know you are wrong, and you will have to apologize eventually…Remember this: I will never let go.” —Alexander Feht to Willis
Just as grains of sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives…..In this willy-nilly battle of wills, will Alexander Feht outwill willfull Willis and will Willis then willingly apologize?

Willis Eschenbach,
An honest man would never put so little sense in so many words.

Thank you Willis and Anthony (congrats on the bloggies in passing),
A wonderful piece about how society should treat it outliers.
Perhaps it is an American thing in smaller communities, harking back to those lawless times only a century and half ago when good people would look after each other. I make this remark as a Brit who has travelled a fair bit in the USA in recent years – I will be there again in the Fall.
I certainly don’t want to get political, but I think there is a difference between people expressing compassion freely and expecting the state to provide.
Thanks again to you both.

Well,Willis, you’ve unleashed quite an avalanche of humane sentiments.
I appreciate your fragment of Wasteland, a poem I haven’t revisited since 11th grade, but which resonates here. TS Eliot was once a regular guy from Kansas, and might have understood.
In a distant century when I was an undergraduate, a friend and I used to dispute the nature of those moments when the inexorable roll of the grinding stone was suspended and a moment of mercy intervened.
“Grace,” I argued.
“Form,” he replied.
You might argue either side. I tend to view government as Leviathan, the soulless incarnation of witless rule and implacable bureaucracy. Humane values are crushed by the mechanism; if you are from the government, you are not here to help, even if you presume otherwise. An individual citizen might offer help and comfort to his fellows of a kind which no government agency can equal, and without the paperwork in triplicate.
My friend tended to view the natural passions as an invitation to savagery, thankfully restrained on occasion by civilizing customs and formalities. Form was a gift rather than an obstacle.
I now suppose each of us had it right. Societies based on envy and control of others need formalisms to restrain their natural tendencies. Societies which rely on free individuals to perform charitable public services necessarily depend upon the goodwill – the grace- of private persons.
Seen in this light, Alexander Fehr’s initial comments seem more comprehensible. I half recall an old Russian folk tale about envy and retribution which ended with the chilling prayer, “Lord, then pluck out my other eye!” (because God had pledged to visit the same fate upon the man’s enemy). No wonder that communism might come to power in a society which valued envy over personal advancement.

Thank you Willis for a very thought-provoking article. And thank you Anthony, for printing it.
I don’t usually hit this site looking for ‘human interest’ stories, per se. (Although one could argue that ‘the weather’ and the long-term climate are always of interest to humans.) Still, this one “off-topic” post really hit a spot.
I agree that “that’s an important measure of any society, what we do with our crazy folks.” I’m a bit on both sides of the fence on it, too. The violent ones should be taken out of society (and I don’t mean ones who yell – I mean ones who attack). But the ones that aren’t? Let them be. They might teach you are me a thing or two if we listen.

pk< says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Pk, I hear you. The pendulum swings this-a-way and then that-away. Here in Toronto we used to have a draconian system once and where they used to incarcerate the mentally disabled. Then, the civil liberties people, the therapists and social workers,and no doubt the municipal and provincial bean counters decided to “release” these people the “community.” In new-speak this translates as “toss into the streets and let the public deal with them.” The results werepredictable; deaths from exposure and long-term malnutrition, thefts, aggressive panhandling, sexual assaults and even a few murders. No bean counter has calculated the cost of all that. Now we have mentally ill people ho are unable to look after themselves sleeping and smelling up libraries, subeays, bank foyers and city parks where low income parents once took their kids to play and for little picnics.
Do we always have to swing from one extreme to another? I’m a conservative chap, but will always insist that we are responsible for those who cannot help themselves and that providing them with the minimums of a safe place to stay where they can have some degree of privacy, a place to store a few things they need to hang on to, some dignity, nutritious food, medical care, a place to wash up and launder and access to people who care is not only a humane, socially healthy but may even be more economically sound. This would not be charity, as we currently understand it in the sense of pious generosity, but more like the original Hebrew meaning of the term, tzedkkah, i.e., imperative and required acts of justice.

Thank you, Wills, for your beautiful and moving description of the Memorial service for Ranger Rick, and for the stories people told about him.
I’m glad the daffodils were out and flowering.
The daffodil is the national flower of Wales, and it is worn in lapels on March 1st, St David’s Day, the day commemorating Wales’ Patron saint.
There’s a daffodil species which grows wild in Wales (‘Tenby daffodil’, Narcissus obvallaris, http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=5209 ), and it flowers from the end of February, just in time for St David’s Day.
So those daffs flowering in Occidental may have been a Welsh tribute to Rick. Or so I would like to think …

So lovely written. I am the women about the clean socks (stolen from my husband) and the couch. It was too cold outside and and I would invite him to our house. I would drop him off in town on the way to work with socks, a hot shower and breakfast. I will miss him dearly. I would get up in the middle of the night with the TV still on. Him snoring his head off. I would turn off the TV on the way back to bed. He’d wake up to tell me… I was watching that! I turned it back on and went back to bed. Blessings Ranger Rick