The Ricker loves velcro.

Really, he LOVES velcro. It's everywhere in his house. He uses it to keep cabinets shut and keys where they belong. He also uses it to fix clothing. The inside of his cars have plenty of velcro--velcro notepads, velcro on the sun visors and even velcro in the car's cubbys (just the soft side).

I also learned (the hard way) that the Ricker used velcro to hang paintings. I made the mistake of leaving him home alone at my old condo, right after I had painted the walls. The circuit breaker in the condo was in the kitchen, and I had hung a framed black board over it to hide it. However, because of the handle on the breaker door, the board didn't hang flush--which is one of the Ricker's pet peeves.

He found some velcro in my tool box, in a bag full of nails and random stuff that he had given me when I moved out. He then velcroed the bottom of the frame to the freshly painted wall. The next time I removed the black board, the velcro held and proceeded to peel layers of paint off the wall.

That was the last time I left him alone in my house without a project.

The Ricker keeps a memory box.

It's an old leather box filled with old Boy Scout badges, rings, key chains, bottle openers and other odds and ends that held sentimental value at some point. It also holds some very weird things as well.

There are two little "peep show viewers"--small plastic viewfinders with naked pin-up girls inside. The box also holds a small, brass ring about an inch and a half in diameter.

About two years ago, the Ricker pulled out the box to give me an old watch of his, a very cool watch with a wide leather band from about 30 years ago. I was wearing something similar, and the Ricker was amazed that his old style was back en vogue. While I was messing around with the watch (winding it), my wife picked up the brass ring. Without a trace of irony or humor, the Ricker tells her that she was holding his old cock ring.

I've never seen my wife move so fast as she did after that announcement. She dropped the ring and ran to the sink to wash her hands. Once again, good times with the Ricker.

The Ricker makes up facts.

When the Ricker explains history or geography or anything like that, there are bound to be a few "Ricker facts" that can't be verified. He says the baby animals are cute so that their mothers don't eat them. He says don't hit cardboard boxes in the street, because one time a kid was playing in a box and was struck by a car and killed.

My all-time favorite Ricker fact involved Idaho. When I was younger, we were driving through Utah and Idaho on our way to Oregon. I was fairly sick, and the Ricker wanted to give me some hope, so he told me that Boise was the Flashlight Capital of the World (if you read the post on bad Christmas presents, you may remember that the Ricker had somewhat of a thing for flashlights). I believed that Boise was in fact the Flashlight Capital of the World for years, even passing that on as my own fact. It wasn't until college that someone (possibly my future wife) pointed out the absurdity of that fact that I began to doubt the Ricker.

The Ricker keeps a clean car.

He washes often, going through Water Works or some other full-service wash. The Ricker then steals a towel, drives a few miles and re-dries his car (to make sure he catches all the drips).

However, there's one spot on the back of one of his cars (the '99), there's a matte spot in the paint. The Ricker decided to remove the dealership badge after buying the car. The badge came off easily, but the glue did not. After trying to get the glue off using gasoline (which is probably not good for the clear coat), the Ricker grabbed some paint thinner (which removed the glue but also took off some paint with it). Yes, he used paint thinner to remove something from paint, not thinking that the paint thinner might also remove some of the paint.

The Ricker likes to golf.

In fact, some of his golfing exploits are famous among my friends. The Ricker's uniform remains consistent with his wardrobe--short shorts and, most importantly, sandals. Really, he loved to golf in sandals. The Ricker was convinced that there golf shoes were invented by lazy greenskeepers for aeration purposes and that they serve no other purpose. Yeah, that's why everyone wears golf shoes.

For years, he teed off with his three iron, placing him about 50 yards behind the action, until I finally convinced him to upgrade to some modern Taylor Made woods (he still carried some ancient, actual wood Persimmon woods). The Ricker was also one of the first--and now last--people to carry a "chipper," a hybrid club that is half putter/half wedge.

The Ricker also carries his own beverages onto the course--usually a few cans of beer in his golf bag and a quart of margarita into two bike waterbottles. Of course, the beer stays in the bag until eventually he has a case of stale, warm beer that he passes out to friends. I've seen him sacrifice the welfare of passengers in order to save the margarita. Once, as he was driving along 16, by the old Forrester place, with Garrett and me in the cart, the Ricker was refilling his margarita while driving, to limited success. Garrett and I had a mix of cheap tequila and lime juice over our shorts and shins. I'm sure Garrett, a big follower of WWJD, appreciated this.

The Ricker's golf score has been coming down in recent years, which he attributes to playing more. I attribute it to more cheating. The Ricker is king of "improving the lie," kicking balls out from behind trees into the fairway. He plays multiple balls, playing his best shot. His round is a lot like a one-person scramble. And, I think he's started forgetting strokes as well. Realistically, the Ricker's 41 (on nine holes) is probably a 48 or 50.

Of course, with him playing the best golf of his life, he wants to share it with me, even though I no longer live in the same state. When I was in college, he would call me and leave messages on my answering machine. At the time, I used my computer as an answering machine, and it wouldn't play any message longer than five minutes. Very frequently, I would come home to see an unplayable seven minute, seventeen second message from my dad, followed by another shorter message. On the second message, which I could listen to, he would explain that he was telling me about his greatest round ever and only had one hole to go but was cut off. Other times, he would leave a message detailing EVERY SINGLE SHOT of his 18-hole round (he shot a 78 according to the Ricker scoring system). The Ricker frequently calls me to tell me about his rounds, but with the onset of technology (and his improved understanding of how stuff works), he has taken to a new form of communication: scanning and emailing his actual scorecard.

The Ricker got in a car accident.

It was years ago, probably in the early 1990s. He was driving to work (in his old rust-colored AMC Eagle; I hope someone else remembers this car) when a cement truck stopped on the interstate to back into a construction site. A few cars back, a trucker fell asleep behind the wheel and pushed four cars--one of them the Ricker's--under the cement truck.

He was okay, a few dislocated disks and some bruises. The car was totaled, but amazingly, the Ricker's huge aviator glasses were saved. They were knocked from his face and ended up on the rear package shelf in the car. The insurance company paid for an all-in-one home gym and a few other knick knacks around the house for rehabilitation. Eventually, the Ricker got the body back in shape, but there were definitely some mental side effects.

At Thanksgiving that year, about one month after the accident, the Ricker was weird--weirder than normal, that is. He kept forgetting simple things: people's names at the table, when to take the turkey out, et cetera. Eventually, during the meal, he slipped into a new personality. The Ricker wasn't the Ricker anymore; he was a money-changer in Ancient Syria. Biblical Syria. I'm not really sure what was happening. The Ricker has been known to pull some pranks occasionally, but I think even Mrs. Ricker was concerned.

To this day, I don't know if the Ricker really had some issues, or if he was just messing with everyone at the table--but I wouldn't put the latter past him.

The Ricker received his birthday call today.

It was a pretty normal conversation with the Ricker in that I repeated everything three times, because he never actually listens to what I (or anyone else has to say). Still, it was a pretty good talk, because some of the stuff I said seemed to sink in after multiple repititions.

Then the Ricker had to go, because he was busy spraying the trees around the house with concentrated spoiled egg spray to keep the deer away from the sumacs.

The Ricker likes holidays, especially Christmas.

He's not one to buy himself things during the year, so he uses Christmas as an opportunity to do this, using one of two methods.

Usually, the Ricker would actually buy presents for himself--shirts, slippers, tools--and have us wrap them up for him. Then, he would act surprised when he opened up his flannel boxers, or plaid shirt (that he never ended up wearing), or his drill bits.

The Ricker would also give the family presents that he really wanted. One year, I got glass lids for pans that "magically" fit the new Scan-Pan skillets and pans that we already had. Another time, he gave me flashlights. On separate occasions, my sister received snow shovels and a can crusher. I think she should have taken the can crusher when she moved out.

The Ricker likes Red Robin seasoning salt.

We used to go to Red Robin a few times per month when I was a kid. They had an arcade, so I was fine with it, and they had a bar, so my parents were okay with it. They also had this really good seasoning salt, which they sold for $5 or something like that.

The Ricker liked it so much, he got some for the house, by sliding it Mrs. Ricker's purse. After a while, the restaurant smartened up and stopped putting lids on the salt containers. However, this wasn't much of a problem, because the Ricker started bringing tape with him, so he could tape over the holes and take the salt home.

Yes, I'm serious.

The Ricker used to take me to work.

Usually, it was an excuse for him to go in late, take a long lunch, and cut out early. We would stop by his office for a few hours in the morning, and then after lunch he would drop me off somewhere to kill some time while he went back to the office. I've been dropped off at Circuit City, Nevada Bob's Ski and Golf, Celebrity Fun Center (a bowling alley, rec center and water park), a pizza place, a Black Eyed Pea restaurant, and an arcade called the Boardwalk. Never did he drop me off at a location where I could actually kill a few hours (like a golf course or a mall); I was usually bored within minutes. Seriously, how long could I hang out in a golf store with no money? The clerks kicked me off the putting green after about 15 minutes.

The Ricker would usually say he'd pick me up in about an hour or so, even though I knew it would be much longer. The Ricker follows his own clock, where he expects everything to take less time than it actually does. Maybe that's why he only worked five hours a day.

The worst were the times he dropped me off at Celebrity Fun Center or the Boardwalk, because he'd only give me enough money for an hour or so. At Celebrity, at least I could make my money last a little longer, mostly because I won some money off other kids by playing foosball (until the time I hustled some city kids a little older than me and spent two hours hiding behind the waterslide while they looked for me). The Boardwalk was a different story. It was one of those early-90s arcades where you loaded up time on a card, instead of putting quarters in a machine. The Ricker would give me enough money to get an hour of gaming and a drink (unfortunately, the second hour of play was more expensive, so I couldn't skip the drink and get more play time). He'd go back to the office, or run some other errand, and return to pick me up about three hours later, well after my video game time had expired.

The Ricker likes plants indoors.

His house was like a jungle inside--complete with a large ficus tree on the middle of a coffee table in the living room. He's got a collection of trees indoors: in addition to the ficus, there were cacti, jade plants, dracaena, spider plants, and palms. He brings a number of flower pots in for the winter, putting them upstairs in the billiards room so it is impossible to play pool.

After time, some of the cactuses, which he had cultivated for years, died out, and the Ricker replaced a few of them with plastic cacti. He'd swear he couldn't tell the difference, and the truth is, with how dim he kept the house at night, you usually couldn't. Except during the day, that is. Anyway, as more plants died out, and as the Ricker decided to redecorate the house, he had to figure out a way to keep his beloved fake cacti.

The house used to be southwestern, very southwestern, until a few years ago. Now, it looks like a purple-and-black time machine to an alternate 1970s. Clearly, the cacti didn't match--until he spray painted them black or silver. This picture shows one of the silver cacti next to one of the Ricker's other sculptures. He even went so far as to spray a fake foam cactus black, with silver and purple rings around the top! He also saved my old, dead bonsai tree and painted that black, displaying it in front of the black, silver and purple cactus. It's really almost too much.

The Ricker overreacts to small problems.

However, he usually knows how to handle big problems. Because of this, The Ricker was always there to bail me out of trouble. I usually had to find my own way out, or fix my own problems, but the Ricker provided some intelligent guidance. Growing up in a small town, I found my way in and out of a variety of situations of varying severity.

During high school, the parents of at least one of my friends were out of town about three weekends per month, which meant we always had a place to party. It was the fourth weekend that was tricky. We had mountain parties, field parties, park-and-ride parties and Cheyenne Mountain parties. We even tried an empty house party, after Ryan found a house near his that was under construction . . . and that had a very long driveway. If you know the details of the story, great; if you don't, this isn't the place to rehash them. Let's just say that the police arrived to find three cars (one mine) and a certain someone still in the house hiding behind an insulation pile, after his Jackie Chan-esque attempt at hiding in the ceiling failed.

Naturally, parents were called. Ry lived close, and his dad was so mad, he drove IN REVERSE the entire way down the street to pick him up. Nicki's dad didn't talk to her for a month, and we didn't talk to her either--because he figured we were the wrong kind of crowd. Then the Ricker shows up, in all his glory. It was late when the police called, but the Ricker was still up, sitting by the fireplace, listening to music and enjoying a cocktail. The Ricker and Mrs. Ricker arrived non-challantly, with Mrs. Ricker driving. The Ricker exits the car, weaves over to the cop car and tries to look through the tinted window. Not seeing me, he leans closer and then closer still, until he smacks his forehead and glasses on the window. Now, even the cop busted up at this, and he probably would have given the Ricker a roadside sobriety test had Mrs. Ricker not been driving.

Surprisingly, everything worked out okay. Nicki's father eventually allowed her to speak to us, and no charges (treaspassing) were pressed. However, indirectly because of my father's suggestion to call the house's owner the next morning to plead our case, my friends and I grew much closer that summer, as we were enlisted as slave labor to help this asshole landscape most of his two-acre lot.

The Ricker's birthday is coming up.

Make sure you call him. Because with the Ricker, every significant day--birthdays, Christmas, mother's day, grandmother's day--is a competition. His side of the family versus the other side. The Ricker keeps track of these calls, because his side is winning.

Remember to call Nana on Easter. Did you call? Good, none of the other cousins called. Remember to call Nana on Mother's Day, and Grandmother's Day. Perfect, the Ricker's kids were the only ones who called. Might as well call Nana on D-Day as well, since both of her husbands fought in World War II.

Even better, the Ricker remembers to call you, to remind you that you should be calling. Even if you've never missed a holiday, and even if you call Nana on other random days of the year, you will be reminded about how important it is to call Nana on President's Day, because only the Ricker's kids will be calling. On Nana's birthday, the Ricker called me three times--and even had my sister call me once--to give me my aunt's cell phone number so I could call Nana during her birthday lunch. Of course, I didn't call then--I called later, when my grandmother complained to me about the Ricker calling multiple times during lunch. I haven't missed a holiday in years, and I still get reminders.


But make sure you call the Ricker on his birthday, because I'm keeping score now.

The Ricker likes his hairspray.

He is very particular about his hair, spending more time than anyone I've ever known getting ready--at least an hour a day. Every night, he spends another 15 minutes on it, respraying it so that it survives the night. I always wondered why he did his hair at night; maybe he was expecting a hot date in his dreams.

His hair is actually long on the sides so that he can mold it all the way around his head to hide his baldness. He cuts his hair himself, daily, though at least twice in the last 10 years, the Ricker's old secretary, Juice, has come to the house to cut it. She cuts a little, then he gets in the shower, washes it, and shows her where else to cut. She trims a little more, and the cycle repeats. And when he's "doing" his hair, he sprays the hell out of it, dries it, sprays it again, then uses his baby brush, which he has had since he was little, that has maybe 15 bristles left on it, so he can get those few little stubborn hairs.

The Ricker needs some industrial hairspray to keep everything in place. He used to be a big fan of AquaNet, but eventually, he switched over to The Dry Look. The Dry Look is normally found on the bottom shelf at stores, collecting dust. Afraid that they might go out of business (understandably so), he bought CASES AND CASES of the stuff, keeping them stocked in the "pantry" in the utility room. Great place to keep highly flammable hairspray . . . in the room with the furnace.

Though I was teased about it my entire life, the Ricker did not have a hairpiece. Until recently, that is. Last year, the Ricker purchased himself a brand new head of hair. He looks exactly the same. If anything, the Ricker is consistent.

The Ricker has two cars.

Two of the exact same car. A Cadillac STS. Black, with gold accents and a cloth top. One is a 1992 with about 240,000 miles on it. The other is a 1999 that must be pushing 100,000. Years of commuting 110 miles per day will do that.

He rotates them with the seasons. In the winter, the '92 comes out. The car is a few hundred pounds heavier, and the Ricker swears it is better in the snow. He thinks the ride is also smoother. The '99 gets better gas mileage. Other than that, I don't know why he drives it. He clearly prefers the '92.

I guess rotating cars is easier than rotating tires.

The Ricker is very particular about his driveway.

It's a fairly steep driveway on the top of a hill, with a curve at the top to get in the garage. The top portion is red cement, molded into a honeycomb pattern. For years, the bottom portion was red dirt that he had hauled to the house in the 1970s to cover the natural, grey dirt. When it rained, all the red dirt would wash down into the street, resulting in deep ruts and exposed grey dirt. For years, my brother and me (and, after my brother moved out but I was too young to help, some of the neighborhood kids) used buckets and wheelbarrows to haul the dirt back up the driveway after every rainstorm. The only problem was, in Colorado, there are thunderstorms every afternoon in the summer--meaning that this was done a near-daily basis for months during the year. My father finally broke down and paved the rest of the driveway, using red cement again. I used to use kerosene and gasoline to clean oil spots and tire marks off of the driveway to keep it clean (The Ricker is not what you'd call an environmentalist). More cement = more driveway to clean.

No one drives on the driveway. Everyone must park at the bottom and walk up, either right up the steep driveway or along a dimly lit, twisting path through the woods. Garrett would always drive up the driveway to pick me up, and the Ricker never got over that. The UPS guy can come up, but only because he has been the same driver for 25 years and because my dad taught him how to come up and turn around.

The Ricker built a wooden road block to keep cars from coming up, which was replaced by a chain that he could pull across the driveway, hanging a little reflector from the chain. The chain immediately rusted, as the Ricker didn't use a galvanized chain. Still, it serves its purpose--keeping people off the driveway and, more importantly, away from the Ricker.

The Ricker needs help.

Well, not that kind of help (although I think he should talk to someone about his control issues). He needs help with his projects. Growing up, I was the classic gopher. You know, "Son, go for this . . . go get that . . ." I've helped paint the house. I've spread pine needles on top of grey dirt, because the Ricker hates grey dirt--he much prefers red dirt, which is not so common where we lived . I've dug holes, planted flowers, built decks, weeded endless rock gardens, hung from trees to pick mistletoe (the parasitic tree-killing kind, not the merry, kiss-inducing kind), swept the street, hauled buckets of water, cleaned gutters, cut down trees, shoveled decks that are never even used.

I finally moved out and moved on when I was 18. However, the Ricker still needed help. Shortly after I moved out, the Ricker decided to re-shingle the roof, using his faithful handyman, Manny Ramirez (his motto "good enough for government," which meant it was close to level). The shingles had been dropped off at the bottom of the driveway, because God forbid someone actually drive on the driveway, and I think Manny was pushing 70 at this point. The Ricker enlisted my friends -- Ryan, Eric and Matt -- to carry the shingles up the driveway and onto the roof. Thanks guys, for doing that, although I'm sure you didn't get paid.

The Ricker likes to garden.

The Ricker's house is on the top of a hill on the edge of the mountains, on about an acre lot. The house is surrounded on all sides by pine trees, sumacs (which, as Ryan says, are weeds anyway), flowers and grass, intermixed with old railroad ties and terracotta pots. While the Ricker has had some success with his flowers and trees, he has never been able to grow a decent lawn. He's tried everything--overseeding, re-sodding; well, I guess that's all he's tried. He spends hours watering the lawn, and he even shovels the lawn to fertilize in the middle of winter. Yet, despite all his hard work, his lawn has always been a little less than satisfactory to him. Maybe this is why, as a kid (and really to this day), NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO WALK ON THE LAWN.

There are stepping stones everywhere on the lawn. The Ricker even trained the dog to walk around the lawn, crossing at just one point. I still can't walk on grass without thinking I'm doing something wrong. Just once, I would have liked to play catch or football on the lawn with the Ricker. Nope, never happened--we used the driveway, which is far less inspiring.

The Ricker is not rational, and the Ricker didn't always pick on me.

My sister had her fair share of chores (maybe just share of chores, because I had VASTLY more to do on a regular basis). Once, the Ricker sent my sister out into the forest around our house to pick up sticks. We lived on an acre in the middle of a pine forest, and my sister had to pick up a bunch of sticks and twigs to throw away so the forest looked up to the Ricker's standards. The Ricker made her clean the forest. He also got mad at her for eating too much cheese on one occasion . . . I don't think she's gotten over this yet.

The Ricker gave me the birds and bees talk when I was young.

I mean young. I was probably eight when the Ricker asked me if I knew what intercourse was. I remember, he told me it was a big responsibility, but it felt really good, otherwise no one would keep doing it.

The Ricker also gave the bird and the bees speech to a few of my friends. Thanks, Ricker. Nothing battles elementary and middle school embarrassment like having your dad explain the ins and outs of sex to the neighbor kids.

The Ricker kept a gym bag in the trunk of his car.

The only thing is, he never worked out at a gym (at least not to my knowledge). It was a leather duffel, with shorts, a shirt and shoes inside. White Reeboks that I never saw him wear.

I think the Ricker used the gym bag as an excuse to get out of work early.

The Ricker has an interesting wardrobe.

He is often seen shirtless, displaying his hairy chest in all its glory. His shorts are short--so short, in fact, that when his original 1980s shorts finally wore out, he purchased the shortest shorts he could find at a department store and had them taken in a few inches. He then had to have the pockets taken in, as they hung lower than the shorts' hemline. He wears sandals, full sandals with a toe strap and ankle strap. They aren't Tevas, that would be too normal. Instead, they are these overly velcroed leather sport sandals that he wears a size too small so his toes hang over. He has two pairs, black and brown, that are identical, because he purchased two brown pairs and spray-painted one pair black. In the winter, which to him means February, he wears old Levis, old cowboy boots (and an original pair of moonboots when it snows) and a denim shirt. The rest of the year, even when the temperature is in the 40s, he runs around in his shorts, shirtless, with sandals displaying his grotesque toes.

He is often seen carrying a large, purple plastic cup, though the contents of the cup have varied over the years. A while ago, it was a tequila half-soda half-OJ. Then, it became the Ricker--a cocktail of vodka, zima and cranberry juice. Now he drinks jug white wine and diet tonic. He doesn't eat breakfast or lunch, and he has a weird predilection for leftovers, even combining a variety of leftovers into a new meal.

He wears sunglasses constantly, even indoors and sometimes at night. They are prescription sunglasses, aviators, with rose-tinted lenses. When driving, he likes to hand you his sunglasses so you can see the sunset as he sees it, despite the fact that he can't see the road without his glasses. He has a large nose, which is anchored by a large mustache, which he curls using toothpaste. His hair is shell-like, one of the greatest combovers I have ever seen. The Ricker looked the same in 1972, 1982 and even 2002.

The Ricker likes his meat rare.

Growing up, I had friends over for dinner quite frequently, as my family ate together five nights per week. We also ate later than most of my friend's families ate, so my friends were often waiting on me to finish dinner before we could start our night out.

One night in particular, I remember, both Ryan and Eric came over for dinner on a Friday. The Ricker was cooking up one of his favorite dishes, a nice chateaubriand on the grill. He had picked out this cut very particularly, as it was on sale and about four inches thick. It was always dim in my house, especially during dinner, as the Ricker likes "atmosphere." The Ricker pulled the meat off the grill and sliced it thinly, across the grain, and served himself first--serving himself before he served my mother or our guests.

Chateaubriand is an artform to the Ricker, as the cuts were always perfectly spaced and perfectly seasoned with garlic salt and dried parsley (for visual impact). Hungry, Ryan began cutting into his steak, working unusually hard. I was talking with the Ricker when Ryan and Eric began laughing quietly, to some sort of inside joke. I looked over and saw Ryan, joking, pretending he was cutting into his arm with his steak knife and pulling out a bite. The steak was completely rare; no, raw on the inside, as the meat was still cold and red. A two-pound steak four inches thick, and the Ricker cooked it for about three minutes per side.

The dead cow on the plate was just the beginning of an interesting night. You see, my dad had just had his annual physical and blood test. After telling us about his blood pressure and cholesterol ("Like a 28-year old athlete"), the Ricker proceeded to explain to Ryan, Eric and me how important prostate exams are--and how we could easily check our own prostates by sticking our thumbs up our asses. I think Ryan lost it right there, and I think Eric got up and left the room--shocked, disgusted yet laughing at the sheer randomness of this conversation. For me, it was just another day growing up with the Ricker.