Firstly my sincere condolences on your Dad’s passing and I am sure he is justifiably proud of your well written, warm and descriptive obituary. I had the pleasure to work in Caltex with Ralph in my first Finance Manager position in Kenya just after my first son’s birth and then have ongoing contact and interaction with him in his career with Caltex, in Dallas and elsewhere. I was in a younger class as it were in Caltex who looked up to the Caltex more senior characters like Ralph, in the good sense of that word, that proceeded us in a mixture of awe and wonder…if we’d ever get to that status…we did. I also ate at your Mom’s and Suma Rapp’s restaurant Hana a few times and heard of both Sue and Lee’s birth and later developments from a proud father and then saw you at some Caltex annual Dallas picnics.
As I said Ralph was one of my initial mentors, even if the time was brief, in my formative Caltex years. While his sometimes laconic and somewhat gruff manner obscured it; I soon found out how kind and concerned he was about others. On the anecdote side, I had the pleasure to play golf with Ralph a number of times in the rarefied Kenya air and he tolerated my much lower degree of skill on the course….as long as I kept up! I used to joke that getting used to the higher altitude in Nairobi was a double challenge when playing with Ralph, he could endure less skill but slower play than his super-fast walk, address, and hit the ball, with no extra practice swings …not so much. We used to joke that if anyone pared the fastest golfer in Caltex, Ralph, with Bill Carroll, likely the slowest most deliberate one, it would be a disaster, thankfully the people paring folks in Caltex golf outings were smarter than that. But, as said scratching the surface of Ralph’s seemingly gruff exterior revealed a truly good guy and colleague who would as the old expression goes give you the shirt off his back if you were deserving, but at the same time didn't suffer foolishness easily.
So rest in peace Ralph, after good innings as the Brits say, even if with some impairments late in the round, I hope your tee times are not delayed and your rounds in the next phase are all to your high standard. Lee and Sue again my sincere condolences from one of your extended Caltex family that respected and admired your Dad, even when as said he could seem grumpy there was always good humor and good intention underneath that always showed itself when you scratched the surface and got to know his true nature. RIP Ralph.
