I first met Ron in July or August of 1976. I had lived in Hastings from August 1970 through April 1972 after 4 years in the Air Force as I finished my degree at Western Michigan University. I spent a lot of time going to college, studying, working part time for my then father-in-law Fred Eckardt at his Jeep/Travel Trailer business and most of all studying. I had joined the Elks but didn’t have much time and definitely not enough money to hang out there much. Besides, Ron and Jackie were 10 years older than we were and “ran” with a different crowd.
After working at Coopers and Lybrand CPA firm in South Bend, Indiana for 4 1/2 years I decided to open my own accounting practice in Hastings. We were looking for a place to live and had seen a home for sale on Cass St that looked like something we would like. We called the number on the for sale sign to set up an appointment to see it. Ron showed up and that’s when we met. No smart phones, no Zillow, no realtor.com so we had no idea how much it would cost. He told us the asking price was $50,000+, our budget was way less than that, but he chuckled and said “Ya wanna see what a $50,000 house looks like?” He was very patient with us knowing we wouldn’t buy, but I’m sure he wanted us to keep him in mind if we found something else. Through the years we bought and sold several homes through Ron.
We got to know each other over the next few years and we were both in a group of several couples that would socialize together. We both enjoyed golf and we both had joined Hastings Country Club. The more you play, the more you form twosomes and foursomes that you enjoy playing with. Ron, Dave Kruko (RIP), Carl Benner and I played in the same foursome at Hastings Country Club in many events and on Saturdays several years. We all had the same interests and got along well. So this is where the stories start.
We usually played together in golf outings including the WMU Bronco golf outing headed up by Lew Lang, the Chamber of Commerce golf outing and always the Muscular Dystrophy golf outing Sponsored by Anheuser-Busch and Cove Distributing. The Cove Outing was held on Labor Day weekend each year and it was right around Dave Kruko’s birthday. There were lots of people playing, a keg of beer every few holes, and usually some young girls asking for more donations at hole number 4, a short par 3, for closest to the pin. As we waited, Ron would always unzip a pocket in his bag, pull out a pint of peppermint schnapps (one year it was champagne) and we would each take a “pull”. That would get things rolling and from there on it was, as Ron would say “Barney, bar the door”. We had lots of fun, our sides were sore from laughing, yes we always drank too much but wrote it off as “work hard-play hard”.
Our friendship grew and we (Carl, Dave, Ron and I) started doing more things together. We began going on a spring “trout fishing” trip in early May each year. We camped at the Pigeon River Campground a few miles east of Vanderbilt just north of Gaylord. At the same time it was mushroom season and we spent a lot of time looking for black morels. We found some good spots and did well some years and not so well other years both with the trout and the mushrooms. In the last couple of years we (Carl and Dave) found a lake nearby that was full of bluegills. I can remember Bert Payne (Senior) coming with us one year. We got out to the lake late morning. Bert and his boat partner started rowing (no motors allowed) out into the lake. The clock struck 12, Bert stopped rowing, and out came the sandwiches. If the clock struck 5, Bert would stop fishing and out would come the sandwiches. We did that trip for 17 years, always the four of us. Some years others would come and go but the core group stayed together.
On another one of the trips Ron and I were fishing along a shoreline about 400 yards from the landing. We both looked and a wall of water was coming right at us. We started rowing like crazy and just got to the landing the same time as the rain. We pulled the boat in, ran for Kruko’s pickup, and piled into the back with Carl and Dave. The rain was pounding down, and we hadn’t been there 5 minutes before Ron said he had to pee. Of course, he wouldn’t get out of the truck so Carl, Dave and I had to huddle in one end of the truck. Ron found a plastic pop bottle and turned away from us at the other end of the truck to do his business. He started laughing and said, “the pop bottle is full and I’m not done yet”. I’ll let your imagination fill in the rest of the story but, needless to say, we all (except for Ron) got a never-ending laugh out of it.
There are hundreds of stories that could be told and a few that will not be told, but a couple still make me chuckle to this day. On one of the trips it was late afternoon and we decided to fish for a little while before dinner. Carl, Dave and I decided to go upstream and Ron said he would go downstream. Near dusk we all met back up at the camp and Ron was sitting there in a chair with his cocktail and had band aids on the fingers of both hands. We asked him what happened and here is his side of the story. He went downstream, the sun was shining and the water was cold so he sat on the bank in his waders for a few minutes. He had a flask with him, sipped on that a few times and promptly fell asleep. He woke up, decided he really didn’t want to fish, and went back to camp. It was shady and starting to get a bit chilly. Being the fine woodsman that he was (this is where our eyes rolled) he got out the hatchet and proceeded to chop off some kindling. Apparently the nips from the flask clouded his timing because it wasn’t very long before he held the wood a little too long as he swung the hatchet and cut his finger. He bandaged it up, changed hands holding the wood and promptly cut his finger on the other hand. Only then did he figure it was smarter to put on a jacket and leave the fire starting to someone else.
We probably spent more time picking mushrooms than trout fishing. We explored several areas and which ones produced when. I had never grown up picking morels but I learned quickly. There is nothing better that fried fresh morels and fried fresh bluegills. The brook trout were best washed with the entrails removed. Put a pat of butter in the body cavity, wrap it in tin foil with chopped onions and diced potatoes and throw it in the coals of the campfire. The fish, onions and potatoes would steam in the liquid butter. Fantastic! The guys told me that beefsteak mushrooms were also good, edible, and better breaded and fried in a hot skillet. Here’s a word of warning…according to many books and many, many anecdotes of victims, sooner or later they’ll get you. Maybe the first time you eat them, maybe the second, for me the third. I’ll just say that the outdoor john on the hill at pitch black midnight was 5 feet farther than my colon wanted it to be…end of story.
On one of the trips Ron had a closing on the Friday we were supposed to leave. We usually got up there by the middle of the afternoon which gave us time to set up camp while it was still light. I had work to do so we gave Carl and Dave our tent to put up and I picked Ron up after his closing. We had gotten just south of Mt Pleasant when I heard growling from my rear end (not my butt, the car differential). We got to town, pulled into one of the only garages still open and had them take a look at it. He told us we had blown a rear seal and he couldn’t fix it until morning cuz the auto parts store had closed. He filled the differential with fluid and told us that if we didn’t drive over 25 mph we could make it all the way without the fluid coming out but we should take it to a garage the next day in Vanderbilt. We set out for fishing camp, took all the back roads we could so we didn’t hold up traffic and arrived at about 1am. Needless to say our couple of “traveler beers” were gone early and we may have, I say may have, gotten into the warm camp beer. Ron and I were well “lit” and fortunate to have made it in one piece. Carl and Dave crawled out of the back of Kruko’s pickup and asked what had happened and why were we so late. We told them, but then asked why, when the camp was nearly empty, they had set up next to a green tent. They told us that they stopped at a Holiday Inn in Gaylord, overstayed their welcome, and got to the campground after dark. They set up camp and set up our tent for us before they realized that there was another party camped right next to them. Being the US Marine that he is, Carl did “a recon” past the tent and stood there for a couple of minutes while we talked quietly. He said he could hardly hear anything so we probably wouldn’t disturb them. We talked for a few minutes, went to bed and fell asleep really fast (we didn’t pass out, really we didn’t). Early the next morning we were awaked by Dave and Carl laughing loudly. I poked my head out of the tent flap and asked them what was so damn funny that early in the morning. They were laughing so hard they couldn’t talk and just pointed. I looked the direction they were pointing and the green tent turned out to be a dumpster.
After we tired of the trout fishing, Ron, Dave, Carl and I made a few trips to Thunder Lake near Manistique in the UP in search of the elusive “12 inch bluegill” (which Carl says we caught but I remember the biggest I saw measured was 11 5/8″). On one of the trips, when we got there, Carl took the cap off the half gallon of camp rum, threw it in the fireplace and said the party has begun. Needless to say we all got totally wasted, but we weren’t going anywhere so that’s all good. Ron decided he wanted to go fishing. According to Jeff Foxworthy, Dave and I must have been rednecks because we told Ron we were “too drunk to fish”. Carl wouldn’t let Ron go alone so they gathered up the bait, loaded the boat, and set out to fish. Dave and I were watching out the window as they pushed off the beach. They hadn’t gone 50 feet when Carl flipped the boat, and he and Ron fell in the lake with all their equipment. The entire cooler of nightcrawlers was floating but was open and getting wet, the tackle boxes were floating, and Carl and Ron were frantically grabbing the equipment. We went out and helped them back to shore (they were only in chest deep water) and dragged the boat and equipment out of the water. Two casualties…the crawlers were all wet (we lost about half), and Ron lost his glasses. We looked and looked that night and the next day after the silt had settled, but never found them. I told Ron the guy two cabins down said he saw a huge Northern Pike wearing glasses the but couldn’t catch him. Ron just gave me the one finger salute.
Intermingled with the years of the trout fishing trip were several ice fishing trips. On one particular trip Ron had decided to ride up with Gene Jorgensen. Ron and Jackie and Gene and Betty were friends and were all near the same age. I can’t remember who I rode with but we all stopped in Stanton. Three of us, Tom Havens (RIP) and I but I don’t remember the third, stopped by Rod Miller’s mother’s house and played cards with her for a couple of hours. Ron and Gene decided to stop by a local tavern that had great burgers to have some lunch. After a while Tom Havens said we had to get out on Clifford Lake and catch some fish. Arne didn’t think we would actually be fishing and he wanted to show her that we did. He told us to keep anything that was big enough to bite on a hook. We didn’t run into many decent sized bluegills but caught a whole slew of marginally sized fish. We were ready to pack up and gathered up 50+ bluegills and bagged them in one Reminder bag so you can tell how small they really were. Just then Ron and Gene came staggering out on the ice with their equipment. They had been in the tavern a good share of the afternoon and were “three sheets to the wind”. Gene pulled out his ice drill (it was actually a spoon style that folded in half). He took one turn and it disintegrated. He had kept it in a barn that he owned outside of town that had burned and he thought it escaped the fire. Not so. They decided to fish in the ice holes we had cut and Ron asked Gene if he brought the worm. Gene said no, I thought you had the worm. We just shook our heads and Tom gave them a waxworm. We expected to see them break the worm in half but they both put their hooks in it and lowered their lines down the same hole. We left them that way and as we got to the car, I looked back. They had decided fishing was not for them and were halfway back to Gene’s truck. I never asked Ron, and he never told me, but I know him like you know him. I’ll bet that, yes they were “lit”, but the episode on the lake was all staged for our benefit.
We did one of the later spring fishing trips to my Aunt’s cottage at Bass Lake near Traverse City, spending a couple of days there before going on to the Pigeon River. On one of the windy, rainy days we decided to spend the afternoon at the Leelanau Sands Casino at Peshawbestown on the West Bay. On all of these trips we would have a kitty that was used for food and drinks. We shared the kitty duties because it was a pain in the butt. The person with the kitty was the last to leave since he had to pay the bill, and the guys would always say “give the bill to my Dad” to the waitress as if she had never heard that before. On this trip it was Ron’s turn to carry the kitty money. After a number of hours (I didn’t gamble so it seemed like days) we went into town to eat. Tom Krul was with us and he said he knew a great place to eat. You know it’s classy when the restaurant’s name is The Hungry Heifer. As we were walking in Ron asked me to wait up and he told me that the kitty was gone. Apparently “the bones were cold” on the crap table and he borrowed some (all the rest) of the kitty money. He was headed out to find an ATM and asked if I would not tell the guys and ask the waitress to “hold the tab” until he got back.
Ron, Ernie Strong and I used to make a summer trip to the UP to visit Jack Sorby. We called it a golf trip, and we did play golf, but there was more time spent in the casinos than on the course. I didn’t gamble, not that I have anything against gambling, but I just don’t get the thrill. Ron would gamble on almost anything whether it be horses, casino games, golf, gin rummy, you name it. Our first stop was always Mt Pleasant and Ron and Ernie would play for an hour or so. We used to eat at the all you can eat buffet, but on one of the trips we just stopped at a McDonalds for breakfast. It was during construction and the restaurant at the casino was closed. After we ate I said “You both like to play casino games. Lifetime do you think you’re behind, ahead or even?” They both hemmed and hawed for a couple of minutes and they both said a little bit ahead. I looked over at the hotel construction and said “They don’t build places like that for people who are lifetime ahead”. They both laughed and muttered something under their breath.
On one of the early trips we had gone at the casino at Watersmeet before they built the new one with a hotel and golf course. It was basically a pole barn with about 50 slot machines and 2 or 3 blackjack tables. I played $2 blackjack for quite a while chit-chatting with one of Mariam Sorby’s brothers, Mark Melchiori. The dealer looked like he had worn the “white shirt” several times and washed it in muddy water. I started laughing and almost fell off my stool when I watched him deal the cards and then count the player’s cards on his fingers. When it was time to leave Mark got 6 rum and cokes to go and we left heading back to drop him off at his camp, then back to Sorby’s. While we were waiting for Mark to come out I asked how each of the guys did. When it got to Ron, his answer was “None of your f*&^%ng business”. Part joking, part serious. We headed out and it was raining like crazy, so I drove carefully. On the way back I think I heard Mark say something like “Jack drives like an old lady. We may not get to my place ’til morning”.
When Jack Sorby died, Ron and I rode up together to the funeral in Iron River. On the way back we stayed at a small motel in St Ignace. There we got a token to play blackjack, a token to spin the money wheel and a roll of quarters to play the slot machines. We went back to the same casino I had won the $1,500 (long story) at and I used my token for one hand of blackjack, lost and left the table. I used my token to spin the money wheel which ended on zero and I left the wheel. I put the roll of quarters in my pocket and took it home. Ron couldn’t understand how I could take the money home that they gave me to gamble with. “Cheap” comes to mind as I think back.
We did things as couples too. I remember one time, when I was in between marriages, Ron, Jackie, Dave Kruko and whoever Dave’s girlfriend was at the time and I decided to go down to Barney’s in Bedford for some burgers. We had a drink or two at the Elks before we left, had a drink or two with dinner, then headed home. We got about a third of the way back to Hastings and, all of a sudden, we started to drift off the right edge of M-37 and the gravel was flying. I yelled from the back seat, “Ron”. We went back onto the pavement and Ron said, “I’m fine. I was just changing eyes”. Ron and Jackie and Jean and I used to go down to Peters in Delton Friday nights for their fish fry. They had excellent food, and Jean mentioned the other day that she remembered Jackie always got a shrimp cocktail. On one of the nights our meal was taking a really long time, and the owner/wife was frantically trying to keep everyone happy. Ron went back toward the kitchen t find out what was going on. He came back chuckling and said, “Pete (the owner) was in the kitchen cooking cuz the cook is out in the alley fighting with one of the waiters”. We finally got our meal.
It wasn’t always fun and games that made us close. When Ron got Legionnaires Disease we all thought he wouldn’t make it. He owned Lewis Realty at the time and I offered to keep the books balanced, the bills paid, and the wolf away from the door. I went to Kalamazoo to visit Ron a couple of times when he was “on the mend but not completely out of the woods”. On one of the trips as I sat next to him talking, he chuckled and said I looked funny sitting in the chair while he was pinned up on the wall above the bed looking down at me. He said that Dave Vender, another close friend, had been there and was told he had to leave because visiting hours were over. He said Dave hid in the broom closet and came out after all the nurses left and they talked all night.
Ron changed, understandably so, after Jackie, Kelly and Kathy had passed. He was still fun to be around, was witty, could do a quick comeback on anything you said, but the “wind had left his sails”. I had left Hastings first for Florida and later to Baton Rouge. I came back several summers for various reasons and made it a point to play golf with Ron. It got so he could only play 7 holes or so but still liked going out. Each year we made it a point to get Ron, Carl Benner, Ernie Strong a me together to play. The last time we played together in 2019 we all played 18 holes. I can’t remember who won but we had a ball and went to Yankee Bill’s for lunch afterward. We told the same stories and laughed like we had never heard them before. We needled each other like we always had, laughed until our sides hurt and reminisced about old times and “absent brothers”.
I had spent most of 2000 in Florida helping take care of my mother, and had made a trip with Jean to Hastings in early September. We were staying at the rooms above AlFresco and I had gone for a long walk through the fourth ward for my daily exercise. After chit chatting with Dick Brower for a few minutes (mostly listening…not talking) I passed by Ron’s house, saw him in his chair reading, and decided to stop just to say hello. I told him that Jean and I were there for a quick visit and had been talking about buying a small house in Hastings and I knew that real estate was selling fast. I asked him to watch for a place similar to his, about the same size, about the same distance from downtown coming on the market and I may be interested. It was then he said that he probably would be selling within 6 months or so. I asked where he was going and he said he just couldn’t take care of the house any more. He would rent an apartment and he knew it would be more expensive, but that would be better for him. He said it again after a bluegill lunch at Dave and Cindy’s so I knew he meant it. Fast forward to November. He called me sometime before Thanksgiving, said he was ready to sell, and we closed on December 23rd. I don’t need to tell the rest of that story.
OK. We’ve had some laughs, maybe shed a tear or two (real men don’t cry, do they?) and I’ve taken a whirlwind trip down memory lane. There are dozens more stories and I will think of them one by one, sometimes laughing out loud. But this has all been MY story about MY relationship with Ron. MY view of Ron. MY judgement about how I think Ron felt. MY way of dealing with the hurt of losing a friend. But here’s the thing. It’s my way of dealing with sadness, with loss, with missing a true friend. I was told once by Skip, another good friend of mine that he had very few friends. I told him he had lots of friends. He said most were just acquaintances. He said you can probably count your true friends on one hand. The friend you can go to and either spill your guts to, knowing it will go no farther, or just be with, nothing said, no judgement. The friend who would help you, no questions asked, when you need help the most. The friend that would stand by you when you screwed up, help you lift yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to where you want to be. The older I get, the more I think he’s probably right, and Ron is one of those fingers on one of my hands.
The reason I let other people read my musings or listen to me read them (I’m no public speaker and I still get nervous baring my soul) is so they can subtract me and insert themselves. They can delete my stories and insert their own. They can laugh about the good times, know that they learned from the bad times, and their lives were made richer because of their relationship with Ron.
RIP Ron. Miss you partner.