As I was standing at the sink washing dishes, my mind was drifting here and there, finally stumbling upon this blog. It occurs to me I had been spending quite some time describing Lewy Body dementia but nothing about RD before Lewy Body came to steal all that he is.
RD was the first born child of two sophisticated, intellectual, fascinating people. His mother and father met in Boston, MA. His father was graduating from Harvard in 1929 with a degree in business and banking, his mother completing a Master's degree in Sociology that same year. Unfortunately, a degree in business and banking was a cruel joke by October.
His father was finally offered a job in Kansas City, MO, working for the early version of Southwestern Bell Telephone. Of course they took the job offer. The newlyweds were off to Kansas/Missouri. RD was born in 1932 in Kansas City in the middle of the Great Depression. When RD was six, his father was transferred 300 miles west to a small western Kansas prairie town. RD would end up spending his entire life in this western Kansas town with the exception of time spent in college, the army, and law school.
RD got out of the army in 1955, married in 1956, had a daughter in 1957, and finished law school in 1959. By 1960, this young family moved back to western Kansas and he began practicing law. A second daughter was born in 1962. A son was born in 1968. RD's marriage came apart shortly after the birth of his son. He was divorced in July 1974. The family he loved moved to Colorado two weeks later leaving him with the house, two chairs, two plates, two place settings of silverware, two glasses and a broken heart.
I met RD the summer of his divorce. Having graduated from college in May, I began working in a bar as a bartendrix/waitress, hoping to find a teaching job as far away from this western Kansas town as possible but not really trying very hard to make it happen. RD came into the bar with a group of men several times a week that summer. I told a fellow waitress, "I know why his wife left him, he drives me crazy, always following me around talking and talking when I'm trying to work". I did feel sorry for him, however. He looked beat up and beat down, sorta sad and lonely. Apparently, on the day his divorce was final, I put my hand on his shoulder and said how sorry I was. I don't recall ever doing that but he has never forgotten it.
As luck would have it, I was offered a job one week before school started in a town 30 miles even further west. What was I thinking? I took it.
RD was 18 years older than I was, divorced with children, and totally NOT anyone I was interested in. I was a 24 year old kid enjoying dating and dreaming about a far more fascinating life than the one I was living. Some time in September I ran into RD again in a bookstore. We exchanged a few words about a book I was looking for - the title, author, and maybe why I wanted to read it. I don't remember much about this encounter except we were both focused on pleasantries and politeness and the bookstore didn't have the book in stock. Two weeks later, I was sitting in my apartment grading papers when RD rang my doorbell. He was holding the book I wanted and asked me to join him for dinner at a local diner. Still feeling a bit sorry for him and embarrassed to have him at my door, I said yes to his invitation. That dinner led to this day. We married in 1979 but haven't been apart since that September evening.
How did I go from "He drives me crazy" to loving him? Somehow it was effortless. RD was/is brilliant. He's an incredible storyteller, a reader of all things nonfiction, a lover of words, a geography genius, a researcher and lover of history and mesmerizing as a trial lawyer. He represented people charged with everything from minor public intoxication to murder. The local Bar Association has created something of a legion around him, loving to tell RD courtroom stories and repeating his infamous one liners.
More to follow....
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