Cousin Richard

Friday my cousin Richard met us up in Calabasas. We shared stories and pictures of my dad (see My Dad posting). It was great fun. Barrett, Seth, Greg, me, Richard and mom (Kay).

Richard has a delightful, sarcastic sense of humor and we laughed and laughed.

Me with Richard, my only first cousin on my dad's side.

Mom (Kay) with Richard.

Barrett, Richard and Gregory.

Richard is a retired anthropology professor. He taught in the sixties to the early nineties and I always remember him as a hippie. I remember his old Volkswagen bug which I guess he still has. Both the boys enjoyed meeting Richard. Barrett particularly enjoyed the visit. Barrett wants to be a linguistics professor so they had lots to talk about regarding the field of teaching at the university level as well as linguistics specifically. Richard said that he studied a bit of linguistics and it was before Chomsky which fascinated Barrett because now Chomsky is all that is taught.

I told Richard that I always heard the story that he was allergic to eggs and that in order to stay in school he would eat eggs when called up for the draft which kept him on deferral until he finished his education. He laughed, told me that my dad always loved a good story and that my dad didn't feel the need to adhere to the facts if it meant a better story. The true story is that Richard is allergic to eggs AND he was deferred from the military because he had eczema. He finished his bachelor's then the military changed their mind and took him, exzema and all,. He was in the military for 18 months. When he returned he finished school getting his Masters and PhD from UCLA.

The other story I always heard was that Richard got a ticket for drunk bicycle riding. This was on campus and this one was true. When I told Richard, he laughed and said that this story was always one of my dad's favorites and that he never should have told him about the ticket :)

Sometimes he talked about my dad with a tone of regret for what his parents did or did not do for my dad, he was too young to know or understand at the time. But no need for that. People do the best they can with what they have at the time. I don't fault his parents who had to take my dad in. It was no one's choice, it was life. We deal with what life hands us. Sometimes it is good and sometimes not so good. Sometimes we are prepared to handle it, sometimes we aren't.

It was nice to hear good things about my dad. When a life is over, sometimes it is just boiled down to a label, particularly when you never knew the person. It was nice to hear more about the man that was my dad than the label attached to his life.