Richard, blond,
fun, lively and gregarious to an extreme, fit well into OKOLONA. He was
a genuine Early East Atlantan, a graduate of Roosevelt High and one of
the better-known youth attending the Eastside Baptist Church with Wayne
and Jim. His sister was married to OKOLONA's then-rhythm player, Tally
Gragg. Most remarkable was his carefree, life-affirming attitude.
Where Richard excelled was in his ability to turn potentially dispiriting
occasions into celebrations of laughter and Richard.
Take, for example, Richard’s
borrowing of Wayne’s sunglasses during a race they attended together at
the Atlanta Raceway in ‘69. Richard had had a few beers and—hell, let Wayne
himself tell it:
. . . . as the race started,
Richard had gotten into rare condition. As the lead cars would approach
the third turn he would crouch into a sprint position and as they broke
into the turn, he would break into a run, much to the amusement of the
groundlings in sight. He kept this up for at least twenty laps. At one
point Richard asked to borrow my $14 Italian wraparound sunglasses I had
purchased at Muse’s downtown.
These were some nice shades,
gaudy and tacky and very expensive for 1969. “No, you’ll break them.” “No,
I won’t let me have them.” “No, you’re drunk and you’ll tear them up.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll be fine. Let me try them out, I just want to see what
they’re like. I’ll take good care of them.” “Well, OK, but be careful those
are expensive.” Richard donned my sunglasses and wandered off for a few
minutes. The next time I saw him he was laughing, sans glasses. I was about
to ask him where they were when in the midst of his hysterical laughter
he held up my sunglasses, now in two pieces, one in each hand. Continuing
to laugh uncontrollably, he held out the shattered shades, “Here, I don’t
need them anymore.” For a second, I wanted to slug, him but Richard being
Richard continued to laugh, “Neither do you.” Hell, they were pretentious
anyhow and it was more fun to laugh with Richard.
Vintage,
lovable Richard; he could well be the subject of his own book.
Until he joined OKOLONA,
Richard had never played bass, but he’d played violin briefly as a child
and trumpet at Roosevelt. He hung around the OKOLONA band a lot, and Wayne
and Jim figured he could easily learn bass. He started on the same cheap
bass guitar that Robert, OKOLONA's original bass player, had played in
the Crowe’s Nest honky-tonk during Okolona's first gigs. Although Richard
didn’t practice a lot, just with OKOLONA at their weekly practice in Tally’s
basement, he learned quickly. Soon enough he discovered what a piece of
shit Robert's old bass really was, its neck now warped from the pressure
of the heavy strings, one key slipping. It didn’t help that, as a born
technician, he’d taken it apart and messed around with the wiring.
The first gig at which they
really needed him, at a music hall in Jasper, he refused to play until
Wayne went to the Smyrna Music Mart and rented him some decent equipment.
And they sounded good together that night in Jasper even though it was
only a matter of weeks after Richard had joined. When the management asked
OKOLONA to play another hour, Richard's fingers were already so badly blistered
that he had to refuse. But, Richard's abilities proven, Tally soon bought
him a Fender Precision bass and a Kustom amp.
It is this very Precision
bass that Richard's worthy successor, Osama Kheir, is proud to have played
in OKOLONA from 1994 to 2001. Now Joy takes the helm.
Richard loved the OKOLONA
band with all the enthusiasm he brought to everything he did. But, sad
to say, after a long battle with hepatitis, Richard died in the summer
of 1993, aged 41. He'd known he shouldn't eat oysters, but it wasn't like
Richard to deny himself any pleasures, and eating tainted oysters at a
yuppie seafood restaurant on Panama City’s Miracle Mile finally did him
in. He left behind a devoted wife, Pam, and one son, Scott. At his service,
a picture of him with OKOLONA, and his OKOLONA hat, were displayed beside
his closed casket. Wayne, fortified by eight beers drunk on the way to
the service, delivered OKOLONA eulogy, telling of the joy Richard took
in life and the intensity he brought to its pursuit.
He’s been sorely missed by
his friends and family; he and always will be.
Wayne again:
I miss Richard like I would
miss the greening of spring time and the collage of autumn hues. He was
as fresh as the changing seasons . . . . Richard was always there when
I asked him to be, a desirable quality. I miss him dearly, going to his
grave at least once a year, passing the ruins of the Old El Paso [later
renamed Gale’s, a roadhouse, which later burned, where OKOLONA had played—coincidentally
located quite near Richard’s grave], always foregoing the sentimental desire
to pour a beer on his grave, ‘cause I’d rather have it myself (he would
want it that way), and always declining to piss on his marker as it has
been broad daylight on a busy road.
Richard had wanted his ashes
scattered onto the field of Tara Stadium, the Morrow High School football
field where his son Scott would quarterback his senior year. Jimmy and
Wayne were ready to enter into a conspiracy with his wife to do it for
him, too. His parents, however, wouldn’t hear of it, and their wishes were
respected.
In the OKOLONA band room
today is kept and appropriately revered an empty Miller High Life bottle.
It held Richard’s Last Beer, the last beer he drank the last time he played
with the band. And because friends remain with us as long as long as someone
is sober enough to tell stories about them, at OKOLONA band practices some
member of OKOLONA will inevitably tell a few about OKOLONA's departed mentor,
Wayne's Uncle Billy, and about Richard.
They laugh about the time
in Tifton when the air-conditioner in their hotel room at the Passport
Inn didn’t work and Richard rewired it to achieve sub-zero temperatures.
And once at the Holiday Inn, after the gig at the Agrirama in Tifton, Richard
discovered OKOLONA's sound man, Ted, lying on his back in his underwear,
drunk, vomiting straight up in the air and choking on his own vomit. “GODDAMN
IT, TED! GET UP OFF YOUR ASS!” he yelled as he grabbed Ted up and took
him over to the shower. He stood Ted straight up and turned cold water
on him until he revived. Richard had probably saved Ted's life. Doing so,
however, had its price. It was one of Richard’s peculiarities that he couldn’t
stand vomit. If he saw it, smelled it, or even heard the sound of gagging,
he’d likely vomit himself. After Ted was safely put to bed, he walked down
two floors into Wayne’s room and promptly threw up in front of Wayne, Jimmy,
their wives, and Wayne’s parents.
Someday, we must have a painting
on black velvet of Uncle Billy and Richard crashing through the Pearly
Gates in, respectively, a ‘57 Ford and a ‘69 Mustang and racing together
down the Heavenly GA 400 highway, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a quart
of buttermilk floating between their cars. They really did something like
that once--pass Jack Daniel’s and buttermilk between cars traveling up
GA 400--a few years before Billy died, when they on their way to conquer
the Nantahala river.
It will hang in the OKOLONA
band room and absorb the sounds of Real Country Music and the smells of
stale cigarettes and beer. It will be taken down only when Richard's bass
falls silent and Okolona's Last Man Standing departs to reunite with the
other Okolonans in--what else?--that great Honky-Tonk In The Sky.
