The following writing is about a soul who died that I did not know, but the writing about his LIFE was so compelling that I wanted to share it. Richard was no ordinary individual. Driven to understand how the world worked and how people worked, Rich lived most of his life in thought and in study. Whether it was how people communicated with language and syntax, how the universe, planets, moons and black holes came to be, particle physics, or trying to make sense of Yogi Berra-isms, he was almost always in thought. If not reading, he was very often writing, mostly letters to scientists, mathematicians, linguists, elected officials, fashion designers, celebrities, even royalty.

As a child, Rich was as mischievous as he was precocious. He was also gifted with an exceptional mind and intellect. His knowledge of facts and analytical skills seemed other worldly and, at times, could be as much a curse as a blessing. His drive to understand was, in his youth, occasioned by puzzlement and even defensiveness from those who may have felt threatened by his directness and persistence. Like us all, his strengths were accompanied by weakness and fragility. Accomplished as an extraordinary student, debater, writer, and Latin scholar through his school years in Galesburg, he was wracked with seemingly equal doses of self-doubt and insecurity. It seemed Rich was all too aware of how vast life and the world around him was. With so little time to solve all of the riddles, his pursuit of truth, beauty and honesty, became all-consuming and maybe overwhelming. He lost perspective and lost his way in his first year of college at Amherst College. At that very tender age and critical juncture, he was sent home where, bent but not broken, he regrouped for a time at Knox College before moving to Champaign where he completed his undergraduate degree and then earned a doctorate in the field of linguistics.

Full of ideas, energy, and questions, Rich set out to tackle the world. But his passion and dogged curiosity for truth carried with it a focus that could and did challenge his sense of boundaries. And, before it even had a chance to be birthed, his career as a university professor stalled and eventually derailed. So, Richard became a community college professor and eventually a tutor to students at the University of Illinois for several years.

Richard’s interests were vast, and intense. They included trying to understand people and the human condition. He turned some of his attention to matters of public policy, community affairs, and politics in Champaign. Once again, his candor and directness took its toll and forced upon him a new path. He became a resident of Florida where his parents, had retired. Many miles from his roots in downstate Illinois and his life in academia, Richard found himself in need of help. He found it at an assisted living facility dedicated to individuals suffering from severe and chronic mental illness. His passion had grown to become what was diagnosed as the manic side of manic depression; his depression borne of his acute sense of the promise lost and the life and career he had worked so diligently to build. As his illness became more acute and complex, he was tormented with thoughts and fears that would become crippling at times, and eventually life threatening.

Richard became a resident of South County where he lived out his days with dozens of others whose lives and stories were, in many ways different, but in other more fundamental ways much the same. Upon his passing, he was remembered by his friends and neighbors as kind, considerate, brilliant, and ready to help others when and where he could. He tutored peers who had not yet learned to read and write. And he freaked out people with his command and use of the English language, something he had done to those who knew him from his earliest years. For all of his accomplishments, the most amazing of qualities may have been his abiding humility and modesty.

Rich loved many things: music of all kinds, but particularly film scores and his nephew’s original compositions which they enjoyed together. He also loved movies, movie stars, the beauty found in art, literature, nature, and the faces and souls of those around him. As a boy, he also loved sports and was a natural switch hitter whose enjoyment of our countless days of whiffle ball was second to none. He proclaimed himself the Commissioner of our league (there was no league) and he pronounced the few rules that governed; first and foremost was, first pick or the next two. (This rule also applied when we made a pan of Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies.). His swing from the left side was so smooth and easy, it could have been stolen from Willie McCovey or Mack Jones. Maybe it was…………….