At my first wedding to Donelle Mae Flick, Randy (left) and Dan Dietz ( both deceased) were my co-best men.
Bruce Chapman (bottom left), Tony Mecklem, Randy (with quart of beer), and myself, in 1972
My childhood best friend, Randy Richard Olsen, would have turned 67 years of age ⁹today, had he survived. Please forgive me Randy, if I have highlighted too much of myself in this tribute to you.
This story is a thumbnail sketch of my relationship with Randy, and with the recovery process from the human condition, including my suffering, isolation, insanity, loneliness, and ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ADDICTION). Friends and family, there is nothing new here, so please do not feel obligated to read this again, I have only posted this to honor my deceased friend, and my own unique relationship to him and our shared disease.
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 extra 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 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 the rest is history. 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.
My life experience with Donelle ending up becoming some of the most compelling, heartbreaking, depressing experiences that I could never have envisioned for myself, or for her. She had a nervous breakdown late in her senior year, and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. She was briefly hospitalized, and was placed on some powerful, experimental medications to try to keep her independent. She was able to graduate from high school, but her spirit was crushed by her disease, and so was mine. I went from being a potential lifelong friend and partner, to a guilt ridden care giver, and care taker, boyfriend, and, eventually, husband to her. I left all of my boyhood dreams behind in the process, walking away from a full scholarship with the Air Force ROTC, so that I could be close to Donelle, and give her the support that she would require for the rest of her life. Before I met Donelle, and before I was introduced to drugs and alcohol, I was to become an astronaut, but instead I was permanently grounded, and resigned myself to a life of mediocrity. I absorbed more than my share of alcohol and other chemicals to help me cope with my own dysfunction, while I watched my lover disintegrate, and then, occasionally, resurrect herself, from the effects of her disease through the latest medications introduced by the drug companies. Yes, we both had lifelong diseases to fight, and we both fought losing battles. She eventually became a homeless street person, and the State of Washington finally accepted responsibility for her care, after I walked out on the whole process. I proceeded to begin my own search for the truth of my being, though I was working with very few clues about which direction to head in.
Randy stayed in contact with me, and, in fact, I lived with him after walking away from Donelle, and, then, two years later, after walking away from yet another losing relationship with a woman named 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.
I only needed to refill a prescription for some antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication that I already had from a psychiatrist that I had been seeing, and I was going to take them all, and call it a life. I went to the pharmacist, with the intention of seeing the deed completed immediately. At the pharmacist’s office, I saw a person that also knew the fiance’ that I had just broken off with, and I started to tell my story.
He just held up his hands, said “STOP”, and told me that he had no time for my problems, and that I had better work them out on my own. THE NERVE OF HIM TO SAY THAT! So, I took my empty pill bottles up to the pharmacist, and asked for a refill.
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.
Well, during my search for TRUTH, in which I traveled the darkest, most desperate roads that our city had to offer. I used up all of my retirement money (from working at the US Postal Service, where I had worked close to ten years) to support me as I wandered through the city’s dark side, basically living out of my 1976 Datsun 310. I hooked up with addicts, murderers, robbers, prostitutes, drug dealers, DEA agents, teenage runaways, and you name it, I was acquainted with all of the darkness of the city (though I did so in a celibate manner-I did not want sex to cloud my vision). It is a funny thing, I was already dead, or so I thought, so I had no fear as I related to all of these human beings. These were people who I never would have associated with in my more ordered past, but in this phase of my life, I had no fear of them at all. My only intention was to find the truth of living, and of being. I engaged every one of these types of individuals, and I had conversations with them about what life meant to them, and what they felt about God, Good, Evil, Darkness, LIght, and human relationships. 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 that I entered into a blackout, and picked up one of my father’s loaded guns, and drove, quite drunk, to an acquaintances home in the Milwaukie area. This person was an associate of one of the drug chemists in the underworld culture that I had just emerged from. I have no idea why I went down there, but I awoke from my blackout when the gun discharged in my hands, shooting a hole in the front door of his apartment. He had two sleeping children on one room, and a sleeping wife in another room, and I was fortunate to have not brought harm to anyone. He then brought a hypodermic needle out, and injected me with crank/methedrine (I cannot, nor will not , inject myself, as I hate needles.) I immediately snapped out of my drunkenness, and proceeded to talk with this guy for 24 hours. I got one more injection, and then clarity finally hit me. Literally, a light went on in my mind, and I saw the utter insanity of the person I was with, and the insanity of my life. I stood up, laughed at the guy, called him, and myself, nuts, and walked out of the front door, got into my car, and drove back to my parents’ home. I was changed, though I just didn’t know how much at the time.
It is another funny thing, two days later Craig Salter called me (a childhood friend that both Randy and I had known since the 5th grade), and asked me if I wanted to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with him. He was required to attend meetings due to the conditions of the court that had prosecuted him for a DUI. Of course, Craig was not an alcoholic, at least he thought that he wasn’t. I knew that he was, though. I, in fact, was the person that got him drunk the first time in High School, when Craig was 16 years old. I actually started him on his decline into his own alcoholism, just like Randy Olson had started me on my first drug, which was marijuana (I was a scholar, a nerd, etc, with no intention of ever using drugs in high school, but Randy and Tony talked me into it when I was 15 years old. That was the single worst decision of my life.)
Anyway, I went to that AA meeting, because the way I figured it, since God was such a big part of AA, and since I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship between those two forces, and AA must have an angle on that. I proceeded to attend over 270 meetings in my first 90 days, since I had nothing else to do, having lost my job, and, basically, my life, to my disease. Craig eventually stopped going to meetings, after his court ordered attendance ended. I continued to attend them, feeling like I had finally found my spiritual home. I did fall into a temporary trap at the Hinson Baptist Church, thinking that TRUTH must somehow be hidden in the church system, and that I could unearth some more by attending church, and being baptised. I was quickly enlightened by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May18, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps.
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.
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.
Jan 21, 1955 – June 3, 2013
