Evan Allen

My lifelong friend Richard died Wednesday, February 23 of this year of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. We will all miss his buoyant spirit, his cheerful manner and his incredible gusto for life. To his wife, Charlene, his daughters, Lauren and Zeta, his parents, Ester and Catalino and his siblings, Ed, Rodney, Susan and Luella: I can only express my deepest sadness for our collective loss.

Richard and I met in 1972. We were in the back seat of my mother's yellow convertible Volkswagen Beetle on a rock climbing trip to Joshua Tree planned by my brother Eric and his brother Rodney. It ended with me watching Richard climb a rock like a mountain goat while I hung, immobilized, with my left leg twitching like a Singer sewing machine. We were both the youngest child of five. Richard was 8 months older than I was, and taller than I was. We both loved the same type of music, and the same flavors of ice cream. We were friends and classmates through grade school, junior high, high school, college and medical school; we were also stationed together at Nellis Air Force Base. I have three brothers, but none of them know me like he did.

While were at Loma Linda Elementary I slept at the Vizcarra's house on Richmont road about as often as I did my own. He and I were as close as twins in those years. Summer vacation days would take a predictable pattern. I would go to his house, stay there all day playing ping pong or swimming. We would eat dinner, then have family worship. Around 10 o' clock we would try to act like we were asleep in his room. Then we would silently sneak out and paste our faces to the TV screen with the volume way down low to watch Star Trek on channel 5. If his mom didn't catch us, we would stay up even later arm wrestling each other -- I could never beat him.

At Loma Linda Academy, Richard and I spent as much time together as ever, studying for classes and rehearsing lines for plays. There was nobody on earth who I could  learn lines with besides him, which may be why I've done very little acting since. We could argue for hours about anything. We would argue about the proper distribution of road signs, the number of years ago and the distance of the galaxy in Star Wars, and who the best looking girl in school was. Richard seemed to keep a cardfile in his head of every statement that I made and if I ever contradicted anything I'd said within the previous decade he would leap to confront me with it.

We both went to Pacific Union College where we shared lots of classes together. My freshman year, as I was walking to the cafeteria I clumsily slipped and fell on my butt. As luck would have it, Richard's sister, Luella was the school nurse on call for that day. Richard got hold of her and between them they convinced me that it was school policy to have a photograph of every injury that happened on school grounds. In my defense, I think I was made more gullible by the pain I was in, but Richard got his picture, and everyone at PUC got a good laugh out of it, as did many of you last night.

While at PUC, it was easy for me to pull hair out of my scalp. Richard sat next to me in biology class and frequently I would try to irritate him by dropping the hairs onto his textbook while he was reading it. He would puff his cheeks out and blow it away from his page. Then, in a forced whisper he would blanket me with invective. He finally came up with a strategy to let me know just how much it bothered him. One day, I dropped my hair on his book and with lightning speed he put his hand to his mouth and slapped down a giant wad of Bubblicious bubble gum onto my scalp, mashing it around for good measure. I stopped putting hair on his books.

When I was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Richard took me around southern Nevada looking for an apartment. He was gracious and helpful while I found my lodgings. He had a funny quirk of reading every road sign that he would see once he got moving in his car. Each reading would be delivered as if it was his version of Hamlet's soliloquy. He had done it all his life, but it got really surreal in Nevada. If you shut your eyes you would sometimes think he was a bit deranged. "Discount tire center, Melinda, mistress of magic, Phoenix, next left, 99% payback."

Richard's biggest and most important decision had been to marry Charlene. It was also his best. He loved her more than anything in his life and their marriage was a testament to their collective strength of character and commitment to one another.

Richard's life was one of joy and he lived it with gusto up until nearly the very end. I had a chance to spend a few days with him just a month ago. He had become frail and it was difficult for him to talk or walk. Yet inside him was the same person I had known all these years with the same interests, laughing at the same jokes and still aware of all his favorite acronyms for things. The last day I was with him we arm-wrestled, and I can let you all guess as to who won ... ok. I could still never beat him.

I am going to miss him for the rest of my life. He and I were the like heads and tails on a coin, differing in appearance but made of the same substance. I'm sure all of you here knew him and loved him as well. His life was cut short by an illness only vaguely understood as of yet, but he lived almost every second he had to the fullest, and I am who I am today because of my contact with him. And I am glad for that at least.