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.
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Alexander Feht says:
February 27, 2012 at 3:24 am
Now that sounds more like me than the bogus quote you tried to stuff in my mouth before, that’s the real thing, undiluted and with extra Tabasco sauce. And thank you for repeating it, as I think that people around here deserve to know who you are. If someone called me that, I wouldn’t want to remind people of it, but hey, it’s your life.
I also note you haven’t apologized for attempting to misrepresent my words. Typical, I suppose, but irritating nonetheless. You go off and tell porkies about what I said, and when it is pointed out, you are totally unrepentant. Peter Gleick could take some lessons from you.
In that thread you refer to (Would you give this man a ride?) I also said:
But that was just because you were acting like a jerkwagon. However, after you called me a liar, I’d had enough.
Here’s a protip, Alexander, for the future: if you falsely call a man a liar without a scrap of evidence to back you up, you should not be surprised if he calls you an unpleasant little worm. It’s the way of the world. Get used to it, because if you go around calling people liars, they’re not going to give you a kiss … unless they’re from Glasgow, if you call them liars they’ll likely give you the famous “Glasgow Kiss”.
So don’t be acting all shocked that I called you out, Alexander. I am a throwback to another era. I grew up with cowboys who had very little but their honor and would fight for it. I come from a time where a man’s honor and honesty were important to him, and where calling a man a liar was one of the very deadliest insults you could offer a man.
So when you shamble in claiming that I’m lying, yes, you will get called an unpleasant worm and worse, and I make no bones about it. Maybe they don’t do things that way in Russia, I don’t know. But out here in the real world, calling a man a liar, when you’ve never met the man and haven’t a shred of evidence that he is lying, will get your face slapped every time, as hard as the man can slap. You got slapped. Get over it.
w.
If it hasn’t been said, it oughta. This is the sort of thing that, to me, earns WUWT awards and accolades.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve…uh…gotten somethin’ in my eye…
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.
Linked and commented here:
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/02/digging-it/
======
I am a throwback to another era. I grew up with cowboys who had very little but their honor and would fight for it. I come from a time where a man’s honor and honesty were important to him, and where calling a man a liar was one of the very deadliest insults you could offer a man.
Yup. The Diggers as I remember them. BTW my honesty saved my life when “Diamond” questioned something I had done. A Model 1911 to the temple until I had answered some questions to his satisfaction.
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.
Mr. Sturm (“The Pompous Git”):
Whatever, dude.
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.
When I hear of someone like Ranger Rick – or Emperor Norton for that matter – I recall Mrs. Jones from when I was much, much younger. Mrs. Jones was an eldery (very), crotchety old lady. One day she would be handing out little ceramic figurines over the fence, and the next, she would turn the hose on us. She live in three old bread wagons that had been butted together and cobbled into a small house or shack. One day she was gone and not long after that so was that wonderful old house of bread wagons.
Alexander Feht says:
February 27, 2012 at 10:58 am
I wasn’t aware that was a problem, Alexander, but I’ll do my best …
Is that how you and your friends do it in Russia? No wonder you’re in trouble. See, we have these funny things called quotation marks. They look like this “”. When you put them around some words, it means you are QUOTING A MAN’S WORDS EXACTLY. Not kinda close. Not your “concise form” of my words. You see, the “concise form” is YOUR WORDS, and you are trying to pass them off as MY WORDS.
We even have a word for that. It’s called “misquoting somebody”, notice the allusion to the quotation marks.
Is this really all that hard?
No, I didn’t deny insulting you. I denied that I had said the words you claimed I said, and I said it was bad form to try to put words into my mouth.
My friend, once again you accuse me of lying. It was that unsubstantiated calumny that got your face slapped before. I was not lying then, and I am not lying now. All you have done with this is confirm in everyone’s mind that I was, if anything, overly generous when I slapped your face for your vile accusation before.
Calling a man a liar, when you have never met him and have no idea of his motives, is the deed of a belly-crawling reptile. I have been wrong many times, but I don’t lie. Perhaps calling each other liars is how you and your Russian friends handle disagreements.
For me, I grew up under a code of honor, where a man’s word was his bond, and where calling him a liar was the absolute worst thing you could do. As my mom used to say, “Them’s fightin’ words” …
Anyhow, it’s your choice. If you want people to continue to consider you a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather, just keep calling me a liar.
Or, you could forget about it, and keep going. I know I have.
It reminds me of the story of the two monks who had taken a holy vow never to touch a woman. They came to a river swollen in flood, and an old woman standing beside it asked if one of them would carry her across.
“Of course, dear mother”, said the older monk, hoisting her on his back and carrying her across the river. She thanked them, and they walked on.
After walking a couple of miles in silence, the younger monk said “How can you carry a woman like that, after you have taken your holy vows?”
The older monk replied “Are you still carrying the woman? I put her down by the side of the river.”
Let it go, Alexander. It’s a fight you can’t win, you are claiming that it is ethical to call a man a liar, and complaining that when you called me a liar you got your face slapped. Yes, you did, that’s how the world works. Call a man a liar, and if he is an honest man, he’ll slap your face as best he knows how.
In any case, nothing you or I can do will change that, it’s in the past, it’s done, we’ve crossed that river. So let me suggest that you put the woman down, and get back to the science …
All the best,
w.
The photograph looks to be of man older than in his early sixties; it also seems very familiar to me.
Is this a picture of Ranger Rick?
Hey Willis, Anthony… respect, guys! Willis, your your writing is a prism that allows little bits of humanity to sparkle.
RoyFOMR says:
February 27, 2012 at 2:43 pm
It’s not the model year, it’s the mileage on the odometer that counts …
Indeed it is, a brilliant picture taken by Ben Aronoff that captured the manic spirit of the man.
See the link under the picture.
w.
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)
Cheers Willis. I checked the link before I posted. The photo must have absented itself after you put it up:)
Found it here :
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120221/ARTICLES/120229905/1350?template=printpicart
PS – smashing article as expected. Slightly damper eyes than normal experienced. Possibility of unwashed-crockery moments emerging!
Lucy Skywalker says:
February 27, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Lucy, I’ve thought since then that you totally misunderstood what happened, so let me see if I can explain it now that you are cooler.
I gave Tallbloke what proved to be an irresistible opportunity to publicly declare himself foursquare for scientific censorship. He did so.
I did not make him do so.
I did not write his screeds.
I did not force him to do anything.
I wanted his support of censorship for scientific reasons to be on record, because I saw it as an important issue.
I did not lie about what I did, either before or after. I announced what I would do beforehand, and I did it.
Call me crazy, but I fail to see the crime in that. What am I missing here? Yes, I had motives for writing what I wrote … how is that different from anyone? Yes, not all of those motives were explicitly stated in the writing … how is that different from anyone? If you don’t have unstated hopes that your writing will make some specific difference, you’re not doing it right. So I didn’t deceive you or Tallbloke. I painted a scene that I hoped would result in him making a public statement choosing to declare for censorship.
He did so, and banned me from his site into the bargain. Which is a great thing, now I have no need to deal with the gravity-heads.
But again … where is the crime in any of that?
w.
Willis Eschenbach,
Your violent fantasies of “slapping” people around will get you nowhere. Your words are dime a thousand. Instead of dealing with arguments, you abuse your opponents and attack them personally. You may have intimidated some people in your past by using this “don’t touch me, I stink” strategy. It will not work with me.
As much as I am repelled by the style and by the low intellectual level of this conflict, 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. I hope that, even in your deranged state of mind, you understand the meaning of “never.”
“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?
When my mother was a kid, she was living on a farm nearby Montreal.
During winter nights, there was a vagrant who entered the never-locked house door, and slept in the kitchen, always to leave before morning. Sometimes, they saw traces of him, but he never stole anything, simply using the heat of the house to sleep. Everyone knew and avoided surprising him in the kitchen. It lasted for a while, maybe a few seasons, and then he was not felt again. I say felt because he was never seen (at least by my mother). I think grand’pa left some food for him too from time to time.
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.
What I love about classic Athens is that even the town’s eccentrics, like Timon and Diogenes, were philosophers; in fact some of the most interesting ones. To appreciate and respect eccentricity is a symptom of a free and healthy society.
A moving story. Thank you.
“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?
It is astonishing to me that someone would hijack a thread dedicated to venerating one of society’s downtrodden outcasts that this particular society refused to cast out. What should be a heart renewing pause to reflect on the kindness we extend and the respect we offer that is counter to stereotypical expectation has turned into a petty lash out at the author of a damn fine story. Yin yang.
Give Billy this moment – it is all he has left.
Alexander Feht says:
February 27, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Alexander, if you don’t want to put the woman down, if you insist on carrying her for the next thousand miles, that is your privilege.
You seem to think that the way it works is, you call me a liar, I slap your face (metaphorically, of course) and then … I’m supposed to apologize to you? Me apologize to you?
In your dreams, Alexander. I don’t apologize to people who call me a liar. I slap them up ‘longside the head, just like every other honorable man does.
Do you understand? Go out into the world and give it a try. Go call a dozen random people liars, and see how many slap your face metaphorically or physically …
Then see how many apologize for slapping your face. You won’t get past zero on that count. You are in some bizarro Russian dream state if you think people will apologize to a man who calls them a liar. Nobody does that, not me, not anyone with a scrap of honor.
Like I said, maybe it’s not like that in Russia. I don’t know. I do know that I and many other men were raised to be honorable and honest. My great-grandfather, a seafaring man whom even his own children called “The Captain”, used to say,
Now I live in a more gentle time. I slap people (metaphorically), I don’t kill them … but that is the code that my family has lived by for generations, and I am no different from The Captain in that regard. So when some jumped-up internet jerkwagon like you calls me a liar, you will get both barrels … I neither lie nor do I tolerate nasty people claiming I lie.
You will never get an apology for my upholding my code of honor. I’m sure you understand “never”.
Now, it seems our positions are clear at this point. I don’t think you owe me anything (other than common decency, which appears to be in short supply on your planet). I have nothing invested in this debate, I think it’s a tragi-comedy watching you wind yourself tighter and tighter. I’m not angry or upset.
You think I owe you an apology, which I assure you will never be forthcoming. You are bitter and furious about being called a jerk when you acted like a jerk. I can’t help with that.
As I said before, I set the woman down long ago. You can carry her forever . But my observation is, that kind of brooding hatred and bitterness eats you from the inside. It puts lines in your face and furrows in your heart and white in your hair. You’re working on an ulcer and I’m playing music and having a good time.
I’m not going to apologize, and you have two choices, the same choices we all have about our lives: dig it or bitch about it. We often seem to have no choice in our lives, but we always have the choice of how to respond to it.
My advice is, dig it, don’t bitch about it, it’s better for your soul. But heck, if you want to cultivate your ulcers and double down on ugly, that’s your right … just remember, it’s you, not me, that gets uglier when you do that …
Let it go, my friend, let it go. It’s not gonna change. Consider it a lesson learned about how the world works, and go back to the science.
Curiously, I do wish you well, Alexander … I know The Captain wouldn’t approve, he’d think I was weak, but then he died in the ‘twenties, and this is new times.
My best to you,
w.
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee.
— John Donne (1624)
From Meditation XVII
Willis Eschenbach,
An honest man would never put so little sense in so many words.