Hey Tracy,

I heard the news. What a gut punch in a year where the hits keep coming with despairing regularity.

I still remember that Friday in 1998 when you came in for your interview. Apparently, we were getting a new news director. The meeting was awkward considering the current news director, a friend of mine, was sitting 20 feet away from that closed office door realizing he would soon be let go. Management was impressed with your resume and life experience; you were offered the job that day.

Since you and I would work fairly closely, I was given information about you. You seemed nice enough, but admittedly, I had misgivings. You were coming from California (cardinal sin!), and this was an odd career move. You got into radio much later in life and this was your second gig. You wanted to move to tiny Newport, Oregon? Really? Your sons lived in the Eugene and Portland areas, so it was a lot closer than your home near Grass Valley, but this was still anomalous. That said, you were an excellent hire — great at your job, tech-savvy, wise, and easy to work with. You made us a better staff.

You were a little older than my dad, but we hit it off immediately as peers. Your wife planned to come at a later date, so for the time being you were a bachelor and the only other guy at the radio station living in an apartment. Our schedules were different. I worked early morning to early afternoon. You worked mid-morning until early evening, unless you had to attend a city council or county commissioners meeting, which you loved as much as root canal. We got meals together, though, and we talked. A lot.

You were a fascinating person. You told me about how you and your wife in 1969 grew weary of Connecticut winters, packed up the Volkswagen van and your little boys, and headed west. A few months later you were in Hawaii. You stayed there nearly 20 years, only returning to the mainland when your kids, after graduating from college, said they weren’t coming back.

You lived in Kailua, on the windward side of Oahu, and told me the outrageously expensive $64,000 price tag on your first home nearly gave you a heart attack. You spoke of your occupation as the senior trade commissioner for the Australian consulate, which you landed in the early 1970s. I never learned how you ended up in that job, but what a career move! You loved the daily commute on the Pali Highway into downtown Honolulu. You had a corner office and saw rainbows every day — secretaries frequently coming in to view them. You arranged protection with the Secret Service when Australian dignitaries came to Honolulu. You introduced those dignitaries to island celebrities. You oversaw trade shows, and you logged a lot of frequent flyer miles across the Pacific. A mover and a shaker who got stuff done in the 50th state! You spoke of Hawaii fondly, and it was still very much a part of you.

For someone like me, who longed to visit but had only journeyed vicariously through episodes of Hawaii Five-0 and Magnum, P.I., these were sublime conversations. I always planned to visit someday. It took a few more years, but your aloha for this special place stoked the fires that finally led to someday becoming now. I think of you every time we go over.

It was evident early on that you were proud of your sons, and you had a fierce loyalty to your wife. You worried about your eldest son who had broken his neck in a fall at work. That was a primary reason for moving to Oregon. He lived in Springfield, and you would be close as his life changed as a result of the accident. Your wife, though, was the love of your life, and it was an omen when she visited and liked neither Newport nor our boss.

One day in 1999, you told me you gave your notice. I remember it sucked the life out of me. During the five years I was in Newport, friends kept moving away. You were the latest, and as it turned out, the last. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d move within a year. You said the Jim Brickman-Michael W. Smith song, Love of My Life, that we played to death was the way you felt about Cindy, and if she wasn’t moving here, you weren’t staying without her. Fair enough.

On your last night in town we went to the Chowder Bowl in Nye Beach. I owed you dinner for those seat covers you gave me following your infamous car accident — one of my favorite stories. There you were driving through my neighborhood one Saturday morning when a kid, who had just gotten his license, blew through the stop sign at Sixth and Nye and broadsided your Subaru. You were okay, but the car was totaled. I’m not sure you were ever called Tracy after that. You became known at work as “Crash.” The climactic point in your nickname’s etymology coming on your birthday when we presented you with a cake depicting an auto wreck — toy cars included. Nickname cemented.

You and Cindy relocated south of Eugene. I moved to nearby Springfield for a new gig in the spring of 2000. You and I got together only once, for lunch, before you told me your son was adjusting okay to his life changes and your wife had grown weary of the rain. You were moving back to California. We emailed and talked on the phone a few times in the ensuing years. You visited Portland for my wedding in 2006 when I asked you to be my best man. It had been six years, and it was great seeing you again. I remember the absurdity of our last conversation on that trip. Lisa and I were returning to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and I suddenly worried that my aloha shirts were touristy. After pulling them from my suitcase in the middle of a parking lot while saying our goodbyes, you assured me they were not.

Over the years, I lost track of you a bit. You and Cindy talked about moving back to Hawaii, but the only thing tenable was the Big Island, and Cindy preferred Oahu, as it had been home for two decades. That just wasn’t going to work due to the expense. As you put it, once off that financial merry-go-round, it’s hard to get back on. Then, one day last year I found you on Facebook, and you were still in California. You hadn’t been on social media long, and I got the impression you were nonplussed by the whole thing, but we chatted. The first thing you said to me: “Wow, voice from the past. Your daughter is precious. Best, Crash.”

Last August you said you were thinking of moving back to Oregon. You wanted to downsize and be closer to your sons but not in their backyards. You were thinking of places east of Interstate Five, Silverton being one of them, which is in my backyard. You planned a trip before the end of 2019 and wanted to connect over a beer. In the meantime, you made comments on photos and even on my ukulele playing. We shared holiday greetings a week before Christmas, and then it got quiet. I wondered why I never heard from you on your trip but thought perhaps you hadn’t made it. You also hadn’t posted anything on your Facebook page since late February. I didn’t think much of this, surmising you were already tired of social media.

But suddenly your face kept popping up in my Facebook Messenger late this spring. I finally visited your page, which had been silent for months. That’s when I learned you died from cancer in March. Your daughter-in-law had tagged you in a “This is why I run Relay for Life” post, and the activity on your page presumably made you show up in Messenger. Stunned is the best word I have to describe my feeling at that moment. Just. Stunned. And sad. I didn’t know you were sick.

You leave behind a wife of 58 years, two sons, three grandchildren, and a worthy legacy. I was able to reach your son, Terry, and we talked about you. He asked if I had any photos of you, so I sent him everything from the wedding. He said they brought him comfort. Your boys miss you a great deal. Terry called Cindy who said it was fine if I reached out to her. We’ve been unable to connect as of yet, but at some point we will. She left your voice on the phone message greeting.

You and I talked every day for only about 12 months, a bit more than 20 years ago. I saw you in person three times after that. You certainly made an impression in that short time of interaction.

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints on your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ll miss you and that last beer we never had. Thank you for the conversations, memories, advice, and patience you always exhibited during a tumultuous time in my life. And mahalo for sharing your love of the Hawaiian Islands. Aloha ‘oe, Crash. A hui hou.

~Clarke