Richard was a loving husband, father, son, and brother and is survived by his wife of 35 years, Myrna McCaleb, his son Alexander (“Ajay”), his father Kirtland, and his brother Brian.
Richard was born in Minneapolis and lived there until age 6 when his family moved to California. He attended school in Oakland, Menlo Park, and Woodside and went to college in Irvine before moving to Redwood City.
While in high school, Richard worked one summer as a door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. His tenure as a Fuller Brush Man met with success when he discovered that houses with a “No Solicitors” sign on the front door were often the best customers – the sign having been put there by a frustrated husband who knew that his wife was a pushover for doorbell-ringing salesmen.
While in high school, Richard took up chess, playing frequently and developing a competitive skill that he later used as a kind of “chess hustler,” playing others for money and usually winning. This went on for a few years until his reputation with local players – as a very skilled and formidable opponent – made finding another player willing to put money on the board an impossibility.
Richard began his career working as an auto and truck mechanic in East Palo Alto and soon took a job with the City Of Palo Alto, working first for the vehicle maintenance department. He later took a job that well-fitted his skills and intellect in the City’s Information Technology department where he retired in 2007 after more than 26 years of service.
Richard met his wife Myrna in the late 1970s and was married in 1983. The couple lived first in a small and tidy former vacation cabin in La Honda, moving to their present home in Boulder Creek in 1990. In this house, Richard and Myrna began a years-long project of repairing damage to the house caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and making ambitious and inspired upgrades and additions to their beautiful house and gardens.
In retirement, until his health prevented it, Richard loved to spend time building features of the extensive and luxurious gardens, decks, walkways, and ponds surrounding his home among the redwoods. Some of his time was spent helping maintain and operate the ancient and leaky private water distribution system that served his little community in Boulder Creek.
In addition to his dedication to never-ending home improvement projects that would have gained the admiration of Sarah Winchester, Richard found time to enjoy other hobbies and pursuits, including exploring his deep interest in Asian cultures, rebuilding a series of decrepit and wheezing Volkswagen beetles, creating elaborate computer-generated art, producing digital photography and videography, building model engines, repairing antique clocks, setting up a small-scale security camera business, and caring for the parade of dogs, cats, and koi fish that moved through his life.
As his mobility declined, Richard enjoyed sitting in his “man-cave” home office, corresponding with his many friends via the internet while listening to his vast collection of 60s and Vietnamese music. Richard was only 12 years old during the 1967 San Francisco Summer of Love, but the music of that era was an enduring and pleasurable part of his adult life.
Richard’s dry humor, acerbic wit, ardent expressions of opinion (“rants”), and inventive spirit are now — and forever will be — greatly missed by all of the family and friends who knew him. He was taken from us too soon and we feel his loss all the more profoundly.
A memorial service for Richard will be held on July 1 at the Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the ALS Association, at alsa.org.
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