Rich

Almost 50 years ago when I married into Claire’s family, I not only inherited a very large family, but I became a member of a club — the brother-in-law club. I’d never had a brother-in law before, so I thought it was pretty cool. When I met my brother-in-laws, they all welcomed me to the family and “club” and we exchanged pleasantries like most people do when they first meet. When I met Rich for the first time, I remember saying something like, “it’s good to meet you.” His response was, “What’s good about it?” My initial reaction was, “oh, my.” Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly “oh, my,” but I thought that maybe we better start again. On the second attempt, we had a completely normal and pleasant conversation and I think I immediately gained a little insight into Rich that many people, for whatever reason, never got to experience. It turns out that Rich wasn’t the “grouch” that he chose to portray to the world. Over the next almost fifty years, every time I saw Rich, the conversation started out with, “hey, it’s good to see you…” and his response was always, “What’s good about it?” Seemed like we just had to get that out of the way so we could talk.

Rich and myself had quite a bit in common — we both liked cars, to build models, the Cleveland Indians, and we were both into airplanes and lots of stuff that NASA did. We could spend hours and hours, probably even days, at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We almost always went there when he came to visit. And on top of all of that, it turned out that we were both curmudgeons. We griped and complained about pretty much everything.

Seems like every time we got together, whether it was Marge and Rich visiting us, or at some family gathering in Cleveland, Rich always suggested that we go for a walk. He liked to walk, and to a certain extent, I do too. During these walks we covered just about every topic you can think of. Rich almost always relaxed and really “opened up” on these walks — it was kind of like going through a portal into a different world. We talked a lot about NASA…. Rich retired from there and over the years I did a lot of work with NASA. We solved world problems and critiqued almost everyone. One subject that almost always came up during these walks was our wives — and of course we complained about them, because — well, because that’s what curmudgeons do. Rich would always say that he wished Margie liked to do this, or that and that he wished she would walk more or something along that line. But I don’t ever remember being on one of those walks that he didn’t say, referring to Margie, “but I really do love her.” Never. Not one time can I think of that he didn’t say “…. but I really do love her.”

I’ve heard it said that the best gift any father can give their children is to love their mother. If that’s true, and I think it might be, then Rich truly gave the Kovachik kids the greatest gift.
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