RIP Uncle Rick

My great uncle Rick was one of the few people in my extended family with whom I felt kinship. We weren't related by blood, he was my grandma's sister's husband, you get it, right? But Rick was way cool. He always had a sort of dry, deadpan sense of humor, and he made me chuckle a lot. And we would have a dry wit-off often enough. I didn't see him all that much, even though he lived right around the corner from my parents' house, but where we didn't have quantity, we had quality.

In 2011, when Banksy was the thing everybody was talking about, Uncle Rick called me up and asked me if I'd heard of this guy. "Why, of course, I even saw the documentary that's going around about him [Exit Through the Gift Shop]." Uncle Rick had seen a 60 Minutes piece about him, or read an article about him in Time Magazine, and he was intrigued. Mind you, Uncle Rick at this point was in his late 70's. "I hear there's a bunch of Banksys popping up all over your town," he said. I told him, "Yep, I've even seen them all!" "Hey, do you think you could drive me around SF so I can take photos of them?"

I couldn't say yes fast enough.

My Uncle Rick put on his coolest Levi's, hiked them up to past his waist, tucked in his nicest plaid flannel, wrapped an SLR around his neck, and we drove all over town that day. And we laughed, and he told me lots of great stories. It was pretty much the greatest day I've had with someone in my extended family. What a treat. He was so genuinely excited by the graffiti art we encountered, and it was one of the best feelings to be able to share this little bit of my city with him.

Uncle Rick died a week ago, at nearly 80 years old. He'd been having strokes since 2012, and he didn't really have too much of a memory left. He was in the hospital when he finally passed, struggling with pneumonia.

Uncle Rick is one of those cool guys who was genuinely excited by a lot of stuff in life. I hope that wherever he is now, he's living it up, and snapping a lot of pretty amazing photos to boot.