Rick was a good friend of mine and I used to see him several times a week when I was working in the area. But, for the last few years I've been on a different job and haven't been able to see him. He and I talked about his cancer when it first showed up and I thought for sure that he had beaten it. Just goes to show that you never know. This makes me very sad. I was out of town and wasn't able to go to his memorial today. We were about the same age and I also lost a good friend and guitar player this past October. When your "contemporaries" start passing...it makes you stop and think.
Thanks for posting and remembering Rick.

 

He always had an interesting sax or two on the wall at his store and it was one of those places you could go to maybe get a neck cork, pick up some reeds and talk shop - not many places left like that. When he was playing with the 'Providers' they had a really good trumpet man and they made a great duo. The last time I saw him play was in the tent at Enzo's one August and a terrific thunderstorm was brewing. We left just as the first raindrops fell - the storm just happened to be going the same direction as we were and it stormed and down-poured all the way down 288. Sounds like a storm was also headed for him - I think it was shortly after that he was struck by a car at a gas station which put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
I'll tell you something about 'losing your contemporaries' that I never thought about - when they're gone, you have nobody to talk about old times with - you start feeling like the 'last of the dinosaurs'. When you share memories with people who also lived them, they're alive and real - when you're the last one, they're just tales.

 

+1, Gary...

 

Rick sold me one of his Mark VI's that I got for my son for his HS graduation. He was always so protective of his saxes, like they were part of his family. I guess they really were. I'm not sure what's going to happen to the store now.

 

He acquired my Uncle Joe Woody's Mark VI after Uncle Joe passed. He said we could make a good deal on it as I had sold him my SBA some years earlier. Well, I never got around to it and the next thing I know, he's no longer with us. Again...you never know. And, frankly I'd much rather still have Rick around than the horn anyway...