{"id":1143,"date":"2018-03-07T16:43:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T16:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2018-03-09T16:43:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T16:43:08","slug":"rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Almost 50 years ago when I married into Claire\u2019s family, I not only inherited a very large family, but I became a member of a club \u2014 the brother-in-law club. I\u2019d 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 \u201cclub\u201d 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, \u201cit\u2019s good to meet you.\u201d His response was, \u201cWhat\u2019s good about it?\u201d My initial reaction was, \u201coh, my.\u201d Well, maybe it wasn\u2019t exactly \u201coh, my,\u201d 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\u2019t the \u201cgrouch\u201d that he chose to portray to the world. Over the next almost fifty years, every time I saw Rich, the conversation started out with, \u201chey, it\u2019s good to see you…\u201d and his response was always, \u201cWhat\u2019s good about it?\u201d Seemed like we just had to get that out of the way so we could talk.<\/p>\n

Rich and myself had quite a bit in common \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201copened up\u201d on these walks \u2014 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 \u2014 and of course we complained about them, because \u2014 well, because that\u2019s 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\u2019t ever<\/em> remember being on one of those walks that he didn\u2019t say, referring to Margie, \u201cbut I really do love her.\u201d Never<\/em>. Not one time can I think of that he didn\u2019t say \u201c…. but I really do love her.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that the best gift any father can give their children is to love their mother. If that\u2019s true, and I think it might be, then Rich truly gave the Kovachik kids the greatest gift.
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n

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Almost 50 years ago when I married into Claire\u2019s family, I not only inherited a very large family, but I became a member of a club \u2014 the brother-in-law club. I\u2019d never had a brother-in law before, so I thought … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}