David Rick was born and grew up in the Midwest – hundreds of thousands of square miles of flat land, with freezing winters.When it came time for college, he opted for a place as different as could be – Hawaii, a sprinkling of tropical islands in mid-Pacific, about 6000 square miles of land in 60 million square miles of ocean, warm trade winds, sun, sand and sea.
At the University of Hawaii he majored in business, with an extracurricular double minor; surfing and volleyball.
After he graduated he went into business in Honolulu – commercial printing and book publishing. He had books printed in China and Singapore, and he flew there to supervise. Not on business, he crewed on a sailboat to Tahiti and back. And purely for pleasure he toured Europe, thousands of rent-a-car miles.
At home in Hawaii his life was his own. He was a self-starter, self-sufficient – but not selfish. He could always find time to be helpful to others. If you needed home repair carpentry, or you had an unsightly dead tree in your garden that ought to be lopped and trucked away, Dave was your man. Nothing was too much trouble for him. And he was great company over a beer, a wonderful storyteller with an eye and an ear for social comedy.
In middle age he made a big life change. A change in every way: he moved to Bangkok and went to work with a megamillion-dollar high-finance organization. Doing investment research, sitting on company boards, supervising trust accounts.
At 73 he died, peacefully. His instruction was that he was to be cremated, his ashes divided, to be scattered in the ocean off the two places he loved best: Thailand and Hawaii.
Dave was a happy traveler through life, and when it came time for his final journey he was cheerfully philosophical. In a last email to an old friend he wrote: "Nature has its way. Always encouraged by you, my rather lazy pen has run out of ink. The many words that have passed between us slowly but gently melt away. All of them cherished just as the flames of youth give way to embers and ashes. A brisk tradewind at my back and nothing but blue skies ahead. Thank you for every day of your friendship. Lightly from Buddhist philosophy and keeping with the times: I'm Temporarily closed. Reopening soon. Aloha and forward, Dave."
