Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
“Ranger” Rick Kaufman, 1949-2012
I’ve had the privilege of living in a wide variety of countries and societies. And having not always been entirely sane myself, one way that I judge societies is by how they handle their crazy folks. “Back in the day”, as they say, I lived in a town called Olema, and I was loosely associated with a group of people called the “Diggers”. The Diggers had a commune on a ranch up the hill from my place. Peter Coyote lived up there. It was a lovely secluded old place, with a constantly changing cast of outrageous characters living and passing through the ranch. Among them was one of the crazy folks. I’ll call him Billy because that wasn’t his name.
Like many crazy people, Billy cycled into and out of his illness. When he started acting up, people would talk to him about it. When it got bad, he’d retreat to his one-room shack behind the main house where he lived. He’d go into his shack for a while, and wouldn’t come out.
So people fed him. When the dinner meal was cooked and everyone sat down to eat together, someone would take him a plate, and he’d open the old wood-panel door to the shack, but hardly talk, take the plate and close the door. And when he got really mental, he’d pull the bottom panel out of the door, and people would just put the plate in through the open panel, and take out the dirty dishes. After a while, he’d hit bottom, and the first sign of him coming back was he’d put the bottom panel back in the door, and open the door for his food.
Then after a longer while, he’d start to talk to people, a bit at first, and finally, maybe a month after he’d first shut himself up, he’d come back out and join the group for dinner and the like. He’d talk to people about where he had gone—it didn’t make much sense, but people listened and tried to explain things as best they could. No one thought of him as special, he was just crazy Billy.
That was one of the most compassionate acts by a group of people that I had seen, and the memory of it has stuck with me.
I was reminded of the Diggers, and of Crazy Billy, by the recent death of a man whom everyone around Occidental called “Ranger Rick”.
I live near a little town called Occidental in the redwood-covered hills of coastal Northern California. It’s not a city, just a “Census Designated Place”. It has no city government. It’s known for its Italian restaurants and not much else. There are maybe a dozen or so businesses.
And somehow, over the last quarter century or more, Ranger Rick became the unofficial mayor of Occidental. Or maybe the town greeter. Or perhaps just the street sweeper. He didn’t do much, he didn’t have any official job, and he drank too much, but he was the spirit of the town.
Ranger Rick was nobody’s fool … but he looked at the world from some very different place than you and I. He could be kind and gentle one minute and raging angry the next, but he never hurt a fly. He watched over the town like some benign and slightly demented elf.
A local guy let Rick sleep in an old cabin on his land. Some of the town merchants kicked in a few bucks a month for a stipend. People who had restaurants gave him the odd meal. He walked from his cabin to town every morning. If you drove through town too fast, he’d shout at you. Sometimes he was not entirely coherent. He pruned the town trees and planted daffodils on the hillside. But mostly, he just wandered the town, back and forth, side to side, helping people who looked lost, keeping an eye on the kids getting on and off the school bus, talking to the tourists. He was the public face of the town, the common thread over the years, the often-inebriated town greeter, both cranky and kind, sweeping the streets and muttering to himself.
And finally, sadly, I suppose inevitably, the alcohol caught up with Ranger Rick last week, and he died peacefully in his sleep.
I bring this up because far too often we are reminded of man’s inhumanity to man. I bring it up because I want to commend and celebrate the spirit of the people of the town of Occidental. Any place else, Ranger Rick might just have been despised as the town drunk; but the people of Occidental made room in our town for a strange, lonely, eccentric and somewhat demented man to have a full and meaningful life. And to me, that’s an important measure of any society, what we do with our crazy folks.
My best wishes to all, hug your lovers and your folks and your kids, life is far too short, and always remember Phlebas …
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
–T.S. Elliot
A memorial service for Ranger Rick will be held at 11 a.m. on March 3, 2012 at St. Philip Church in Occidental.
[CODA]
I went today to our town of Occidental for Ranger Rick’s memorial service. The yellow daffodils he planted were blooming all over town, a gorgeous sight. Rick’s mother and his two grown daughters were there. I think they were surprised by how well-loved he was … and by the host of strange folk, young and old, who were his friends.
Occidental is a time-warp kind of place, a hidden landscape of the mind rather than a geographical location, full of vestigial hippies and other refugees from the 1960s. It’s not even a town. People came from miles around to honor Rick, and to tell stories of how he had touched their lives.
A little girl, maybe five years old, stood up at the microphone and said “I liked Ranger Rick. He was my friend. One day he stopped us from having a food fight, and gave us bouncy balls instead.” From the mouths of babes … kids were always his favorite.
Occidental for a while had a couple of resident chickens, a rooster and a hen. They just wandered around town, kind of town pets. A local merchant told his tale of the Ranger.
“When I came to town to open my pub, Rick started coming around. I asked some of the other merchants who he was. They said ‘He’s the Mayor of Occidental’. ‘Mayor?’ I said. ‘Occidental’s not even a town, it’s just a ‘census designated place’, it doesn’t have a Mayor.’
‘Rick’s the Mayor anyhow’, I was told. So when I saw Rick again I said ‘So I’m told you’re the Mayor of Occidental.’ ‘No, I’m not,’ Ranger said. ‘The Mayor of Occidental is the rooster.’ He was perfectly serious.”
Another man who was living in another town told of taking a job in Occidental. At his first lunch break he went to a local store to get some food.
“I was standing at the counter when I heard the door open. A man who was mostly beard stuck his head in and said ‘Hey … come with me.’ I looked around, no one else was there, he must have been talking to me. I didn’t know what to do, so I turned away, and I heard the door close. In a few minutes it opened again, and the strange man was there again. ‘Hey … come with me.’
I truly didn’t know what was happening. I paid for my food. When I went outside, he was there and said “Come with me!”. He disappeared around the corner of the building. I didn’t know the town, I didn’t know him … people had warned me about Occidental, and now four hours in town and I was already going down the rabbit hole. I peered around the corner. He was just going around the next corner. I followed him out to the edge of town where he had stopped under a tree.
‘It’s here’, he said. ‘What’s here?’ I said. ‘I mean right here on this spot’ he said. ‘What is it that’s here?’ I asked. ‘It’s the Yum-Yum tree’, he said, and pointed upwards. I looked up and to my amazement, the tree was full of ripe pomelos. Rick started pulling them off and piling them in my arms.
He loaded up as well, and we went through a back trail to the main road. ‘Great’, I thought, ‘I just got to town and I’m already a criminal with a demented accessory’. When we got to the road Rick said excitedly, ‘It’s up there!’ and pointed up the road. ‘What’s up there?’ I asked, mystified. ‘It’s big, it erupts out of the ground’, he said. ‘That’s a fire hydrant’ I objected.
‘Exactly’, he said, ‘let’s get it,’ and he started bowling pomelos, uphill, at the fire hydrant. I had no choice at that point—there was nothing left to do but embrace the suck, so I joined in the bowling. I ended up good friends with Rick, and I have to add there’s one thing he did for me that nobody had ever done.
He really improved my pomelo bowling …”
Yeah, that’s Occidental all right—spend half a day there and you end up pomelo bowling with a genial madman … the next guy got up.
“I went over in the morning after Rick died. I took his stash because I didn’t want the police to find it, and I put it in a safe place. So after I finish talking here, I’m going across the street and anyone who wants can help honor Rick … and his stash …”
He drifted off. I saw him later across the street with a half-dozen folks. As sometimes happens in Occidental, the atmosphere in their immediate vicinity had gotten kind of hazy, I think it might be something to do with naturally generated aerosols or something. They were laughing, talking about the Ranger, honoring their fallen friend in their own manner.
So the stories flowed, one hour, two hours, people talking, people weeping, stories from the kids and the dads and the moms. One woman said she’d let Rick sleep on her couch sometimes. She said he never asked for much, but occasionally she’d give him clean socks when he asked for them. Another man stood up and said “I thought I was the only one giving him clean socks”. Yet another man stood and said the same … socks, go figure.
Occidental is a town where the people gave a lost man clean socks … and it is a town where that’s pretty much all he asked for. People gave him the rest without his asking, because in his madness, he worked hard every day at keeping the town sane.
Lots of folks were wearing Ranger Rick t-shirts today, with no words on them, just his face in black and white with his piercing blue eyes. And there was a sign up on a table that said “Everything I need to know I learned from Ranger Rick”, with his photo, and a place for people to write their wishes … and there were pages and pages of good wishes for Rick.
There’s a statue in Occidental of Ranger Rick wearing his worn San Francisco Giants cap, by Patrick Amiot, a local artist. It is fittingly perched on top of one of the trash cans that he used to keep filled.
Ah, Occidental. It’s that kind of town. The daffodils were blooming today in Occidental. Rick planted most of them. He cared for the flowers and talked with them and gave them water. We cared for him and talked with him and gave him clean socks.
Sometimes, life actually is that simple.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
We had a guy like this in my little home town. People would have him do odd jobs that they themselves could easily have done in order for him to have purpose. Those lessons were taught to me by my father. I think today’s society has lost sight of these things…
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.
Cheers had me, Occidental had Ranger Rick, and WUWT has Willis.
Precious.
Will you be filling in the void Ranger Rick left, Willis? Seems like a good fit.
[Reply: I haven’t noticed any popcorn filling in packages I receive. Business slow? ~dbs, mod.]
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
The different definition of social.
Accross the atlantic gorge, there, when people are free to care for themsleves most folks seem to fare, through community spirit and team work, rather well. In essence they freely put social in community.
But in the socialist communities In EU, people are ordered into communities and forced to pay, through taxes and more, for the state to care about the community. Who, then, but does not exempt themselves from how well folks fare?
The difference then is affordability, in the free well fare community you can afford to be social, in the socailist well fare community you are taxed til the point where you can’t afford to be social.
In my socialist democratic country, who claims to be the best in well fare and health care in the world, we pay almost the highest taxes on this planet, yet we get the cheapest care possible, including the cheapest medication, and worst of all the state doesn’t even own a single soup kitchen for the homeless.
It’s ironic that in a socialist country only the private interest groups can afford to deliver free care, the state is more interested in keeping the credit rating in check so they can loan ever more the expanding well fare bureaucracy that gives everything away to venture capitalists to keep the stats on the up and up. Especially now that the health care are to be fitted by a green cross.
If the homeless want clothes, food or place to sleep, well then, they have to go to the private sector, because in the socialist health care system they only get remitted to sit under a “sun-lamp” for an hour.
It’s good to know that there are still some places where folks actually care. Thanks.
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.
As above, thank you, Anthony and Willis. The comments are worth reading as well.
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 Willis and Anthony.
Aus still has some chaps similar to Ranger Rick, around our smaller country towns.
Ive met a couple and theyre good value for interesting views and handy hints, on the oddest things.
so sad to see them go.
at least they lived free and as they chose.
RIP all the eccentrics and fringe dwellers.that dont rate on societies” must be like” scales:-)
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.
Alexander Feht says:
February 27, 2012 at 5:11 am
“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.”
Who says totalitarianism is dead? Long live the double standard!
Cheers,
Cliff
[All are read. All are moderated. Robt]
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
Every man should be cherished in life and in death.
So it seems God has made it certain than that Ranger Rick was cherished for his own efforts, however modest or eccentric, and by the kindest and forbearance of his neighbors. And who is to say that is not the way man is meant to be.
It says much of your community that it pays respect to such a man and that it bestows upon him what honor his humble efforts can command.
Thank you for publishing Willis.
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 $?
Thank you Willis and Anthony,
“The mind is its own place,and in its self can make
a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
( John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book One )
Hari Seldon says:
February 27, 2012 at 12:36 am
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.
==========================================================================
Ranger Pete? If only he were that harmless and well-intentioned.
We had a guy in my hometown called “Abe Lincoln.” OTOH, there are tons of examples of the more harmful and dangerous types. I worked with an alcoholic who was able to stop drinking, but unable to conform or accept shelter from the community services or individuals who tried. He took to getting himself beat up for extended overnights in a good hospital until one time he didn’t get beat up bad enough to be taken to an emergency room, but still died of an unknown blood clot. I also held hands with a homeless guy who had just killed someone. We are not all Noble Savages.
Thanks for the post and interesting picture of a public figure who was blessed to find his niche. I’m still looking for mine.
Willis and Anthony,
This has been so cathartic. I read through every posing in this thread. You have touched the hearts of so many people and dredged up so many thoughts. Thanks!
[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.
Thanks, Willis, reminds me of some who I knew-and helped in Port Orford, Oregon.
Just the nautre of small towns- same here in NE Oregon…
It’s a Good thing..
RIP, Rick…
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.
Wills, I love your post, keep them coming!
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
Ranger Rick reminds me of another “Mayor” I heard about way back some time in another small California town who would wander the streets and respond just about any time anyone asked him anything with, “Don’t worry about it.” I can still hear him and have thought about him occasionally over the years. There’s no one around here right now like that, but I’m hoping to fill the gap.
Jer0me says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:47 am
That kind of slow, exhausting mental degeneration is a huge burden, Jer0me. I am sure that the others join me in wishing for you all of the strength and patience and love that it will take to care for her and the children.
You have chosen a very difficult path, and it sounds like you are the better man for it. Hold tight to your kids, they will be your salvation and your guide in the darkest times to come.
My regards and best wishes,
w.
Alexander Feht said @ur momisugly February 27, 2012 at 3:24 am
Well gosh Mr Feht, the topic seems to be people in our local communities. How was I to know you were OT?
How true, I know only as much about you as you reveal about yourself here.
It matters to me not one tittle that my doing praiseworthy things disgusts you. Why on Earth would I seek your approval for what I do?