This story is a thumbnail sketch of my friendship with Randy Olson. I first met Randy Olson when I was in fifth grade, after he moved up to Oregon from California. He lived about 3/4 of a mile down Oatfield Road from us, and we rode the same bus to school together, for grades 5-8. He had many friends, with me becoming an important friend to him, but, by no means, not his only friend. He was an extremely gregarious fellow, with a great sense of humor. He grew up awkwardly, at least physically, with his legs being too long, and out of proportion with the rest of his body. He shot up so fast in 7th grade, and became so much taller than his peers, that he was given the nickname “Lurch”, with which he was named after an extremely tall character in the 60’s TV series called “The Addams Family”. We all played pickup basketball, football, and baseball games every spring, summer, and fall together, as well as shared all of the normal sleep-overs, camping trips, bicycle rides, pool and ping-pong games and activities that others our age would engage in, through our freshman year in high school. Then, in his sophomore year, Randy got his first car, and that car opened up all sorts of new vistas for all of us.
Randy Olson 1970 yearbook
He immediately found his first long-term girlfriend, a young woman by the name of Terri-Lynn Barr, a person that he met at the Portland Rose Festival. Terri had a friend named Sharon Denman, who befriended Tony Mecklem, another of our mutual pals, and they both had their first “almost adult” relationships starting at about the same time. I felt a bit left out during this period of time, though I did finally get a couple of friendships going with some girls in the same approximate North Portland area that Terri and Sharon lived in.
Terri-Lynn had a step sister named Donelle, and one day Randy drove Donelle down to Portland, where I had my first chance to meet her. This was not a date (it was far from a date) but when I first laid eyes on Donelle, I was hooked. She was the most beautiful young woman I had ever met, gorgeous beyond all description, and she was incredibly intelligent, and sensitive, too. I had a sense that I had witnessed my future, when I first saw her. I did not see her again for several months, but she had left an indelible mark upon my soul, and I just could not forget her.
Since I was still not driving at the time, there was no way to go up to meet with her on my own, so I just let all thoughts of re-connecting with her just slip away. She already had a boyfriend in Vancouver, Washington at Evergreen High School anyway, according to Randy, and I had such a low self esteem that I knew I could not compete for her affections.
Well, Randy did bring Donelle down again our junior year (Rex Putnam High), and I made my move. Eventually, Donelle and I, and Randy and Terry, became couples that shared much time and love together. I did not always get along with Terry, which was a trend that was to continue through most of Randy’s relationships with women that were to follow. For some reason, Randy’s girlfriends always eventually saw me as some sort of impediment to their relationship with Randy. One time we were all camping at Short Sands Beach campground at the Oregon Coast, and Terry became so irritated with me that she pulled the tent stakes out of the tent that I was sleeping in. That is only one of many stories that show that I did not always have the best connections with Randy’s girlfriends, though there were a couple of times to follow, in later years, where my connections became a little bit too close with some of his ex-girlfriends, which brought me some additional learning experiences.
I had started living with Randy Olson beginning in early 1984, until late fall of 1984, after walking away from Donelle in the fall of 1983. Randy was always there to offer a helping hand, and always counseled me to look ahead. He knew that I could find another direction for my life, and that it was important for me to enjoy the present moment as much as he did. Randy could never offer the sobriety direction, however, as he enjoyed his beer more than the next guy, and, I am sure, could not envision a life without the support of the spirits of the beer keg. Randy and I had roamed the Cities of Beaverton and Portland for many hundreds of nights, enjoying the music, the people, the temporary friendships of others, and the support of a multitude of friends that Randy had developed over the years, including his many girlfriends.
I wrote my first love poem in 1984, when I became lovers with a woman by the name of Diane (Di Di) McCloud. I had first met Di Di while she was running with Gary, a cocaine dealer and friend to both me and Randy Olson. Gary and I became friends, and Gary eventually stored his money and cocaine in a safe house, which happened to be the home that I lived in. How unlucky was that for me! I got the privilege of running with the same important local people who Gary did, including prominent local rock and roll DJ’s, as well as the best local rock and roll bands. And, during this time, I started to fantasize about someday hooking up with his sweetie, but I never had any intention of having an affair with her. Somehow, she stayed with Gary for over two years. Di Di was quite the free spirit, as well as a drug addict, so Gary’s appeal may have been enhanced by his constant supply of drugs.
Randy and I began living together near downtown Portland in February of 1984 We lived on the 22nd floor of the Panorama Tower, and it was at this home that Randy first brought Di Di, who had recently broken up with Gary, into our shared lives. She hung out with Randy for a few days, then lost interest in him. Randy and I partied together only on the weekends, because of my shift work. But, my partying got the better of me, and in April, I was placed in the Lovejoy Care Unit for thirty days, to recover from drug addiction and alcoholism.
Upon my exit from the Care Unit, Di Di came back into my life. Somehow, we hooked up, early in the summer of 1984, and this most beautiful woman professed her love and willingness to stay connected with me shortly after that. I was blown away, as she was the most attractive, sexy woman I had ever seen. I was so inspired by my relationship with Di Di, that I wrote my first love poem in 1984. She treasured the poem, and actually sought another copy of it shortly before her own death early in 1987. She was to become the first person that I felt I had ever truly loved, but we had to let each other go after a short period of time.
Bruce with a 1984 look (Randy suggested the pure blond look for Bruce for the summer)
Alcindia represents an era with great overall darkness in my life. I met Alcindia at “Bannisters”, a bar in Beaverton, after Randy and I moved into an apartment near 117th avenue late in the summer of 1984. I danced with her one evening at the bar, then I brought her back home to the apartment that I shared with Randy. She was a cute younger woman, who worked at the Aloha Intel Fab as a chip maker. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, other than I was a lonely man, and Alcindia might be a good short-term friend. We hooked up that first night, and there were no strings attached, at least not initially.
(the following is a poem found on a napkin that I had written upon while in the Care Unit)
Oh, those ephemeral loves, I wish we had never started,
Just vacant wayside stops in life, from which I soon departed.
Standing alone, though seemingly surrounded by others,
Desiring just one, wondering who would be my next lover.
Searching for that one, to share in a new life’s dream,
Disgusted by the many, who were not quite what they seemed.
Needing attention, and wanting to share love,
That’s what all of my dreams seemed to be made of.
My life has become empty with only darkness looming ahead
Without an inner change of heart, quite soon I will be dead.
Running on life’s mysterious road, one final journey to start,
With no maps to follow, save those presented by my empty heart.
(end of poem, but not the end of the nightmare)
I continued to live with Randy, while still working the graveyard shift as a maintenance mechanic. Randy had a live-in girlfriend at the time, by the name of Claudia. Randy thought that she might have psychological issues, noticing that she might be manic/depressive, or something along those lines. She had come from another relationship where she lived with three guys, at least one of who was bi-sexual, and, according to Randy, she may have had relations with all three men over a period of time. I rarely talked with Claudia, not knowing exactly what to think of her, and my schedule kept me away from Randy and her the vast majority of the time.
The week following Alcindia spending the night at our apartment, Claudia became “interested” in me and my life for some reason. I did not think much of it initially. One morning, I came home from work, showered and went to bed at about 8:30. Randy had already left for work, so it was just sleepy me and Claudia. I was just falling asleep when my bed bounced, and a naked Claudia appeared next to me in bed. Not knowing what to think or what to do about it, nature somehow knew what to do, and did so three times, and left me wondering how the hell I was going to explain this one to Randy.
I did not tell Randy right away, feeling shame and remorse. I continued to see Alcindia, who came over on my weekend and spent one more night with me at our apartment. Since we were just “friends” there was no need to tell her about my indiscretions. The next day I was visiting with her and her friend Baby at their apartment, trying to get to know Alcindia better. Out of the blue, she starts telling a story to Baby about another girlfriend’s boyfriend who slept with his best friends’ girlfriend while his best friend went to work. As she told her story, she repeated back to Baby, and to me, some of the language that was used during my soiree with Claudia, even recalling that there were three sexual interludes. I was to learn, at a much later time, that she had placed a voice activated recorder under my bed. I had my suspicions, but never confronted her about her “story” to Baby. I subsequently moved in with Alcindia and her mother, at an apartment complex in Aloha, where I stayed until November of 1985,
Randy stayed in contact with me, and, in fact, I lived with him both after walking away from Donelle, and, then, two years later, after walking away from my relationship with Alcindia. Randy was always there to offer a helping hand, and though he felt bad about what had happened to me, always counseled me to look ahead and find another direction for my life, and to try to enjoy the present moment as much as he did. Randy could never offer the sobriety direction, however, as he enjoyed his beer as much as the next guy, and, I am sure, could not envision a life without the support of the spirits of the beer keg. Randy and I had roamed the Cities of Beaverton and Portland for many hundreds of nights in the past, enjoying the music, the people, the temporary friendships of others, and the support of a multitude of friends that Randy had developed over the years, including his many girlfriends.
On January 26th, 1986, after yet another night of fighting depression with the hops and yeast anti-depressants, I woke up upon Randy’s living room couch at 8:45am, with him emerging from his bedroom, exclaiming to my clouded mind: “BRUCE, WAKE UP AND TURN ON THE TV!! THE CHALLENGER JUST EXPLODED!!!” After watching that horrific event over and over, I realized that my life was also over. I saw mirrored in the Challenger disaster the total destruction of all of my hopes and dreams, and I made the decision right then and there to end it all.
This was going to be it, because I knew that my problems could not be solved, at least not on my level. The pharmacist REFUSED to fill the prescription, even though I had one refill left on each one, and told me that I needed to see the shrink again. Hmmph! I saw the psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers, and he perceived what might be happening within me, and elicited a promise from me that I would not kill myself. Dr. Dan had just had another patient kill himself using the same medication that I had, and he could not live through another such event (nor could I, I guessed so astutely). So, he got the promise from me, but I kept those pills under the front seat of my car. I told myself that unless I found the truth about my life, about all of life in general too, that I was going to leave the planet, as I thought that only the absolute truth would give my life any meaning at all, a meaning that I could live for.
Randy’s apartment was quite small, and it was time to move on, in more ways than one. I heard a message within myself asking that I begin a “search for truth”. I moved out of Randy’s home, dumped my belongings at my parent’s home, and began living out of my car for the next year. During my search for TRUTH, in which I traveled the darkest, most desperate roads that our city had to offer. The most amazing thing happened at the end of the journey, however, when a DEA agent literally pickup me up, and drove me to my parents’ home. He told me “Bruce, your search here has ended, You must begin again with your father, and restart your search with him. We can’t protect or support you any longer, it is too dangerous”. So, I landed in my parents’ home in late 1986.
I was still a mess, strung out from months of drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, and I had also lost 70 pounds, weighing a mere 136 pounds. My face was all broke out, and I had the most horrific shakes, and I “heard voices”. I had experienced convulsions several times. I had lost my capacity for speech for two days as a result of what must have been a stroke. I was still drinking, but I was no longer using drugs very much. I invited Randy Olson over on March 13 of 1987. He came over, and he, and his girlfriend and I proceeded to down an inordinate amount of my fathers’ booze and wine. My parents were still “snow birding” in Arizona, and would not be home until the end of the month, so I was still able to keep my dysfunctional momentum going. Well, after partying with Randy until about 10:00 PM, Randy had to go home, so I was left alone with my horrible problems.
It was then, during a blackout, that I almost killed some innocent people, though through the experience, I had an amazing realization: That I was insane, that the people that I had been associating with were insane, and that there might be a different way to live life to potentially restore my sanity and bring a sense of well-being to me, perhaps for the first time in my life. After bouncing around almost two hundred AA and NA meetings over the next two months, I found a nationally known and revered speaker on AA recovery named Jack Boland, who helped facilitate a spiritual awakening with me, through a new interpretation of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was so excited about the new possibilities for my life, that I decided to go visit Randy and tell him all about it, in May of 1987.
On May 22, 1987, as I was driving toward Beaverton to visit Randy, a wonderful vision came to me. It was the vision of a loving mother, holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime. There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and though me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and an awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting. I had to stop my car on Canyon Blvd, and I got down on my knees and prayed my thankfulness to a CREATIVE FORCE that finally had found me receptive, and open, to its presence.
I made it to Randy’s house, and I met with him for the first time since my blackout experience. Randy could not believe his eyes, he said
“Bruce, what has happened to you? You look different, you look happy. You look at peace. You have changed!!!”
Yes, I had changed. I started talking to Randy about my experience, and Randy started to get tingling sensations up and down his spine. The hairs on his arms starting sticking up straight off of his arms! Randy exclaimed
“Bruce, what is going on. When you talk, I start to tingle all over. What has happened?”
“Well, I think that I am having an experience with God, Randy.”, I said.
Randy then said that such an experience was not for him right now, but he sure was happy that I was having it, because I needed something different in my life really bad, and really quick. How right he was!
So, Randy was there at the beginning of so much of the important/ significant events in my life. And, he was there at their end, as well. I could not take Randy into my new-found world of love and happiness, I could only share, ever so briefly, my personal experience of it. My future conversations with Randy became increasingly less productive, and I found that I was losing touch with Randy spiritually, emotionally, and, finally, physically. I did not see Randy at all , the last 8 years of his life.
The last time that I saw Randy, he was placing a 12 pack of beer into his car at a Fred Meyer’s store. He was hesitant to acknowledge me, and I felt as if he was trying to avoid me. He appeared sick, and bloated, and I wanted to say something to him about it. But I did not, thinking that it was not my right to intrude upon his life now. I had phone conversations with him three more times over the last eight years, with the last time being over three years ago. Our friendship on the “outer plane” of life apparently was already dead. And then, my wife Sharon reads his obituary in last Friday’s paper, shocking me to my core. My lifelong friend, Randy, was dead, apparently dead of a heart attack. His body was discovered in his car in his driveway, having just returned from a Subway sandwich shop.
And yet, he lives within me. I am so grateful to have known Randy. I now know that I could not take him to the spiritual places that I was to visit. It would have been the least that I could do for Randy, if it were only possible. He only needed a little willingness to join with me, to experience some of the joys of being on the path of recovery, healing, and love.. Yet that willingness was something that none of us can give to another human being. I had pointed to the new direction, but he chose to look the other way.
His funeral was a shock to me, it was poorly attended (I only found out about it through chance, when Sharon happened to read the obituaries, and saw a listing for his funeral the day before). The most popular and friendly person that I had ever known died almost anonymously. He had, literally, thousands of friends and acquaintances through the years, but in the end, he was nearly forgotten. He died in isolation, but he deserved so much better than that.
You are still loved, my friend. I am grateful to have known you, and to have experienced the thousands of hours of life with you, the 48 years of life that we partially shared.
May you be at peace my dear friend, at the center of it all, from where you started, and to where you have finally returned. Save a place on your couch for me, will you please? I will know that I will be welcome in the Kingdom to come, if I see your apartment there.
Randy with my parents and me, during Thanksgiving of 1993
Jan 21, 1955 – June 3, 2013
