Make your friends your family

When we moved to California in the summer of 1980 we knew no one, knew nothing about what California was really like, and had no friends nearby. For about a month. Then the children started school and we almost immediately met Ralph and Suzie Coley, neighbors whose daughter Jen was in the same class with Ruth at the local elementary school. They invited us to share Thanksgiving dinner together, knowing we were new to the community and neighborhood. They and Alan and Anne Christie adopted us and made us welcome, sitting around a round patio table made of a cable spool. They allowed the new folks to be part of their foursome. That act of kindness was the beginning of almost 45 years of friendship. Ralph and I could hardly have been more different. He was a hulk of a man, obviously a weight lifter from his college football days, solid as a rock and almost as thick. He was a beer drinker, an engineer, a jogger. I was a journalist recently moved from the East, a reader of books and non-athletic. It just didn't matter. We both had Florida and camping and diving in our pasts, and the Coleys and Christies opened their homes to us and made us a part of their lives. Ralph's idea of neighbor was the keep his door open, the pool clean, the barbecue grill hot and the hot tub warm. Withing weeks he taught me the essential California skill of hanging out in his back yard, drinking beer in the hot tub, and competing to see who could throw the empty cans directly into the trash can. He and Alan happened to jog by our house one day while I was in our front yard digging up some plumbing. They stopped, assessed the situation as engineers are prone to do, and promptly took over and happily dug, laid pipe and covered it up when done. All I was required to do was make sure a cold beer was waiting. Over the next few years we hiked and camped together in the summers, and took up cross country skiing in the winter. One of my favorite Ralph memories was a summer we were camped out at Utica Reservoir high in the remote mountains, using canoes to go out to islands in the middle of the water. We had a problem, though. All the six-packs of beer were gone, and that was considered an emergency. So after searching carefully in the trucks and cars, Ralph and Alan drove ten miles or so to replenish the suplies. In the winter we would cross country ski from where the highway was blocked by snow, down into the area around Lake Alpine. We dragged all the kids along, even when our son at three was so small he had to be carried out at the end of a tiring day. Those were good years of growing friendships, and I treasure them today. I even recruited Ralph to play soccer on the Killer Bee adult team, which he did happily until he pulled a hamstring and had to bow out. This week we attended (via the Internet) the memorial service for Ralph, who died in Massachusetts where the Coleys made a home for the last two decades. The service was full of love and good memories and we watched as Ralph's son Travis, daughter Jen and wife Suzie all remembered his with love. The children now have grey hair, and the grandchildren are grown. The Christies were sitting with the family. Just what he would have enjoyed: family and friends together, telling stories.. As the preacher said at some point, Ralph lived by the idea that we all should "Make friends of our family, and family of our friends." We were privileged to be among those friends. RIP Ralph. A good man who left his mark.