If you are a bit stuffy, you might consider me inappropriate for commingling a memorial with other people, but Ralph will forgive me because he is being coupled with good spirits. It took Ralph Hauser a solid 91 years before he decided to move on to a fishing stream in the sky. I knew Ralph for half of his lifetime, and I am richer for having had that friendship. He was a player in our Pocatello poker group (The Pigs) that started in 1981.
I have written too many memorials in recent years. It’s not a comfortable feeling when dear friends and family start dying at an accelerated pace, but I would be remiss if I let Ralph pass without public acknowledgement. He wasn’t a figure who sought the limelight. A court reporter by trade, he lived a quiet, literate life. His passions, that I knew of, included the love of family and friends, reading, reciting and writing beautiful prose, fly-fishing crystalline Idaho and Montana rivers, coffee clutching, and playing poker with deranged piggish friends. We “Pigs” harangued him frequently for his exotic card game creations, abominations of poker would be a more apt description, but we loved and respected this rock-solid man.
Ralph was a steady, reliable person in the lives of many who knew him. Even-tempered, it took a lot to rile Ralphie boy, as he was affectionately called by the poker pack of snarling jackals.
You see the measure of another human in the way they handle adversity. When Ralph’s lifetime partner, Mary, began failing, Ralph was devotedly at her side for years until this beautiful, classy woman moved on. He eventually rebounded, bought himself a red Mustang in his 80s, and kept on waxing poetic and playing poker.
I thought Ralph was done for when they discovered a malignant brain tumor last year and operated. However, he rebounded from that major surgery and continued driving down from Blackfoot to play in our card jousts (sleeping on my easy chair after the games). Even after the surgery, Ralph could still recite complex poems from memory. I am willing to live to 90 if I can do it with the same clarity and balanced panache Ralphie Boy exhibited.
I use the word panache, but Ralph wasn’t splashy or egoistic. He won’t be remembered for having written a classic novel, but he loved the written word and could really turn a phrase; Ralph also treasured intellect and reasoned debate. He was that kind of friend we all cherish because he was consistent his whole life; always there if needed — the kind of person that sustains friendships. Ralph rooted for his amigos to do well, other than when they held a hand of cards against him, and if he lost, he took it like a man, so to speak, with an acceptable “modicum” of grumbling. Ralph would laugh at that pretentious word choice.
Another great 91-year-old spirit passed recently — H. Wayne Schow’s obituary was in the Idaho State Journal. Schow was a deep intellect, and Ralph, like me, had solid respect for the professor. The written word has always been important to Ralph, and Schow was masterful at using it to articulate heartfelt opinions that he would back up with facts and logic. That type of advocacy impressed Ralph.
Ralph and Schow were cut from similar cloth. They loved this country, and from reading Schow’s columns and discussing issues with Ralph, they held similar “alarmed” concerns regarding America’s continuing decline. Nobody is making America great again — we have a system that is fostering profoundly unhealthy wealth accumulation at the top and a decline in America’s world standing.
The country Ralph and Schow revered has been crumbling like a sand castle in the face of a Trump hurricane. This decline troubled Ralph, and it has been obvious from reading Professor Schow’s columns that he felt the same way. It saddens me that such strong voices (one more public than the other) for the kind of America most of us want have been lost. These were good men who made a difference. They were reliable and always showed up. They will be dearly missed. Ralph is being remembered tomorrow from 4:00 to 6:30 in Blackfoot at Hawker Funeral Home, 130 South Shilling Avenue. If you knew eloquent Ralphie boy, please come and pay your respects.
In closing, I have written about the loss of two great, old spirits. But many readers have been asking me how the tender Mayan butterfly, Chanpepen, is faring. Beautifully, as this 6-year-old continues receiving treatments. I was able to provide the family sufficient funding to last for 2 months when I returned to the U.S., and I will be returning to Chiapas in July. At that point, Chanpepen will have completed 100 treatments with only 20 remaining. Funding has been donated for all but five of her weekly treatments.
The letters and kind notes many readers enclosed with their donations moved me deeply. Many of you are complete strangers, yet you reached out to help a girl who normally lives deep in the Lacandon Mayan rainforest. Chanpepen had a worrisome cough (tos) for 6 weeks, but that has finally disappeared. This butterfly is recovering and should return to fluttering in her rainforest next winter. Thank you for the generous donations sent to save this darling child.
Chanpepen’s family has indicated that they consider me an honorary nieta (grandfather) to this bright sprite. That isn’t tough duty, and I happily accept an ongoing presence in her life. On the flip side, attending Ralph’s funeral saddens me because he and another stalwart 91-year-old, Wayne Schow, have moved on. The planet was made better by their presence, and I applaud two lives well-lived.
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