Hello everybody,
I was informed of this forum and the post about Rick’s passing. So I decided to register and maybe shed a little more light on this.
I first met Rick more than 20 years ago. We did business in the same building in Belleville. Rick had his Demons in his life and he had come to Belleville from Mississauga, where he grew up, to fight the same. Subsequently he got stuck here or liked it here. At that time he was a lot slimmer. He had his good times and his bad times. It was only many years later that he totally shook off his demons and tried to stay on top of things. Smoking and Diet Pepsi in large quantities however stayed with him. And of course Coffee. We had many together over the years and discussed the problems of the world.
Rick had the gift of a biting sarcasm and never shied back from telling you what he thought of you, or, in plain English, he would simply tell you that you were stupid if you did not immediately succeed to rise to his almost Einstein level of thinking and vast knowledge.
Rick had travelled the world when he was younger. Supposedly he was in the Peace Corps and spent time in Thailand (where he “fought” with the warlords), he worked as a computer programmer in Israel and had some tall stories to tell, claiming that he got drafted into the army because his Polish name sounded too Jewish. He returned to Canada via England, where he was born in 1955 to his Polish parents who had gone there from Poland after the war and then came to Canada later on.
Ricks father established a very large machine shop in Mississauga and sold the same upon retirement many years ago. They produced mostly airplane parts and the company still does so today. Rick’s father is now 89. He had remarried more than 20 years ago after his first wife, Rick’s mother, passed away a long time ago. Rick has one brother who is paralyzed from the waist down and is in a wheelchair. He is married with children. Rick however never married and has no kids. Rick was the” heir apparent” to his father’s business but lost out because of his demons. But he had spent a lot of time in the machine shop and learned to use the machines there. It was later that he got into computer programming which he stayed with until the end.
In his younger days Rick was an avid gun collector and a good shooter on the ranges. He also worked as a security guard and had no qualms to tell people that he would shoot them if they did not get out of his way. As far as I know nobody ever put those statements to the test.
Besides his computer work and the just started eBike technology, Rick was working at a local call centre and lived in a spacious apartment. I think that his initial enthusiasm for eBikes came from the fact that he had gotten so large, that it was difficult for him to ride a normal bike. It had also become necessary for him to have a heart by-pass operation which was done in Kingston. One evening after work he went for a bike ride and hit a large pothole on a secluded street. He went over the handle bars and impacted on the non-yielding pavement and pulverized his shoulder which then bestowed him with a titanium shoulder joint. It was a long road to recovery. Not long after that he cut his toe on one of his machines and it got infected. He went to emergency but was unwilling to wait there and went home. A week later a friend came by and noticed how bad his foot was and took him to the hospital which resulted in Rick losing his lower leg.
He was in the hospital for a long time. I visited him daily and brought him his “Timmy”. He could not smoke and he had promised me that after weeks in his room, where he could not smoke, he would keep it “quits” since he was over it. But then he got his first wheelchair and one morning when I came he was not in his room. I looked on the patio and there was Rick puffing away. Needless to say that I was totally miffed.
Since he had no means of income he had to give up his apartment and it fell on me to clean it out while he was still in the hospital. I moved all his stuff into a garage which a friend had lent him. It took me a month to accomplish this. When Rick got out of the hospital he applied for the Ontario Disability and got it and he also got a small bachelor apartment in the public housing building. This is where the picture was taken that you see on the other post by justin le. Rick had sued the city for the pothole/bike accident and got a settlement which he promptly converted into the machinery which he moved into this little one room apartment. Later on he moved into a one bedroom apartment across the hall and he increased his machinery and eBike parts and computer collection.
Last Year Rick had received a pacemaker and it was done under the condition that he gave up smoking, which he finally did. But unfortunately he never adjusted his dietary habits and kept on enjoying good and plenty of fast food as well as his beloved 4 liters of Diet Pepsi and lots of Coffee per day.
The superintendant of the building, who incidentally had scheduled an inspection of Rick’s apartment for that day, found Rick on the morning of April 2nd sitting in his computer chair. He had passed away the day before of a massive heart attack. Of course only Rick would pull an April’s fool trick like that. Obviously he did not suffer.
His parents were still in Florida and drove back. It was a week later that they finally got to Belleville and we were allowed to enter the apartment. Rick’s father has asked me to clean out the apartment and to dispose of all items.
There is a huge amount of bicycle parts and machinery. Also there are 2 2-wheel bikes and 1 3-wheel bike. All are partially taken apart but supposedly all wheels and parts are there. There is a rig to hold a wheel for threading spokes and many boxes full of electronic bike parts. I am looking for somebody who is interested in all this stuff for a fair and reasonable price. In the next couple of days I will try to establish some kind of list of the items. Of course anybody interested is welcome to come to Belleville and see the stuff. I am trying to have the apartment empty by April 30th.
There is also a milling machine, a lathe, a drill press and a sanding machine plus accessories for the same and other stuff.
Rick has been cremated and his Funeral Mass and internment will be in Mississauga on Tuesday, April 29, at 11 AM. If anybody is interested, I can let you know the church and cemetery.
I can only hope and pray that Rick is able to look back and is able to say that he enjoyed his time here on earth. May he rest in peace.
Walter
