The mudslide
I worked alongside Ric when he was a physical therapist in Ballard, Washington in 1991. I was 19 years old and working as a physical therapy assistant while I took a year off from college. The physical therapy office where we both worked was one big room with some cloth curtain dividers, and the patients and therapists could chat about things during the physical therapy sessions.
I figured one day that I would tell a long story about how our house was recently destroyed by a mud slide. It was one of those freak occurrences due to a faulty drainage system at the top of the hill behind our house, and no one had been hurt. Nonetheless, with dramatic, 19-year-old flair, I began to tell this long story about how my Dad had been in the house, making a salad in the kitchen, when the house suddenly started to pitch and move, and he was terrified, and had to smash his way out the sliding glass door with a kitchen chair. I was hoping to really impress people with the horror of this story, and spent a fair amount of time telling it. When I was done, I expected some expression of sympathy or awe. Ric said, "So, you never explained--what happened with the salad?" :)
I wasn't close friends or family with Ric, but he made an impression on me. One woman came into his office complaining of 20 years of back pain, and left pain-free, shocked. His set of exercises and encouraging manner helped me recover from some injuries that had been plaguing me for 2 years. I continue to do the exercises that I learned from him. And, he was fun to work with. I hope people at his memorial service knew just how amazing he was at his job.