--LIFE IS MOSTLY MADE OF EDGES
Dear
Annie,
Nevertheless, I wanted to share some
personal thoughts with you.
Like so many other people, I was a friend and big fan of
your father’s. We went to Pasco High
School together and then later we were in the same fraternity, Sigma Chi, at
Washington State University.
I moved to Pasco the day before my junior year
started. I didn’t know a soul and I was
very shy back then. Pasco is a small
town and people who live there all grew up together, going to elementary and
middle school, bonding and making tight connections. I felt like an alien.
However, your dad befriended me, even though he had
nothing to gain by it. As I said, I was
really introverted back then, almost terminally shy. Your dad was the opposite of that, so
gregarious and accommodating with everyone.
It was rare to see him not smiling.
He had a big, toothy grin that was immediately infectious. The girls all thought his dimples were
adorable, plus they loved the idea that he had hair like John Travolta--long,
parted down the middle and feathered.
I spent quite a few afternoons playing basketball at his
house and for several years we went to the hydroplane races together on the
Columbia River. Invariably, your dad
knew everyone that lined the riverbanks and he’d spend most of the day saying
Hello and catching up instead of watching any of the races. He didn’t care about boats—people were what
mattered most to him.
I was with your dad for a wedding the day before Mount
St. Helens erupted in May of 1980. We were
in Pasco and when we woke the next morning the sky was an eerie plum color,
almost as if it was bruised and in pain.
There was no social media back then, so we were fairly certain a bomb
had been dropped somewhere. Driving back
to college in your Dad’s Chevy Nova, we heard the news about the volcano on the
radio. As soon as we did, as if on cue,
ash began to fall, thick as snow but lightly gray colored, like dust and lint
shook loose from a vacuum bag. Your dad
loved music, and he had an 8-track of Jimmy Buffet, so he played the song with
the lyrics, “I don’t know where I’ma gonna go when the volcano blows.” We put it on repeat, singing along as loud as
we could, hardly able to see out of the windshield since it was so covered with
ash.
As you already know, most of us called your dad “Rockin’
Rod.” In high school he somehow landed a
gig as a DJ on the local radio station in Pasco. He worked late evenings, but we’d stay up,
call in and request really obscure songs that your dad would play and mention
our names in the dedication. We thought
that was pretty cool. We were friends of
a celebrity and this celebrity proudly let everyone listening know that we
were, indeed, friends of his.
There was a group of us who were pretty close for a
while—Rod, Justin, Rene and me. Your dad
dubbed us “The Four Musketeers” and he always grinned wide whenever he used
that moniker. It made me feel special,
included, as if I belonged to this unique tribe or club reserved for only a few
lucky people.
I have so many wonderful memories of your dad. I could go on and on.
Annie, I can’t even try to imagine what you’re going
through, but I did want to tell you that your father was a great man--not that
you don’t already know it. Anyone who
can leave such a lasting imprint on the hearts of others has lived an
incredible life, just as your dad did.
When I think of him, he’s smiling. He’s wishing everyone else the best and he
genuinely means it. He’s showing all of
us how to live life in full, teaching us how to be better than we ever thought
we could be. There’s a welcoming glow in
his eyes that says, “I’m here if you need me.”
Sincerely,
Len Kuntz
2/25/17
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