The end of the year is a time for toting up gains and losses, and we lost some wonderful people in 2009, people you won’t read about in Time and Newsweek.
Jean Ross Dilatush of Salida died on March 9 from injuries suffered in an auto accident in Monument. She was 78. Jean was active in church and community affairs, but I got to appreciate her when she sold real estate 20 years ago.
Martha and I were looking for a bigger house, and there were plenty for sale in the depressed Salida of 1989. At first we walked or drove around, noting the realty company on the sign, then got a viewing appointment which generally included a preposterous spiel.
At one house, where one of us had to back out of a tiny room to get enough space to open the refrigerator door, the agent told us, “You’ll love this cozy kitchen.” I didn’t need to hear more such talk.
I knew Jean from the local computer club. She and her husband, John, had United Farm Realty here, and I thought they just handled rural property. That was their specialty, Jean said, but they were part of the Multiple Listing Service, and she could show us any listed house.
I almost looked forward to house-shopping after that. Jean never tried to tell us that a few cracks in a foundation really didn’t matter or that we should ignore water stains on a ceiling. There must be a place in heaven for an honest realty agent.
Colorado also lost Jack Mulqueen of Hot Sulphur Springs, who died on May 22 just short of his 78th birthday. He was a great guy to drink with. He looked like a pirate with his eyepatch, and as the obituary in the Grand County newspaper observed, he “was blessed with the gift of story-telling, always told with a liberal dose of embellishment.”
Jack was involved in many enterprises, but I remember him best as a member of the Hot Sulphur Springs town board when I worked in nearby Kremmling. One night they were trying to set sewer rates. Jack wanted to tie them to water consumption; others argued for flat rates.
“How is that fair?” Jack asked. “If Family A has a history of constipation, and Family B often suffers from diarrhea, wouldn’t a flat rate be a subsidy to Family B?”
I don’t remember how that turned out, but I do remember that after we quoted Jack in the Middle Park Times, several people canceled their subscriptions because of our “poor taste.” Jack thought it was hilarious, and offered to pay the lost subscription income.
My planner friend Randy Russell died in November. He was only 61. He worked all over the West — San Luis Valley; Las Animas; Helper, Utah; Telluride; Garfield County; Jerome, Ariz. Between jobs sometimes he drove a taxi or painted houses in Denver. I suspect his work was so scattered because Randy had an excellent “crap detector,” and he wasn’t shy about using it. He insisted on facing issues squarely, with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.
I loved to argue with him because he was so good at it. He forced me to think things through when I was making my case, and he could demolish lame arguments with brutal wit supported by wide reading.
He was generous with his knowledge and connections. Whenever I had a writing job anywhere near his expertise, a call to Randy would give me people to talk to, books and articles to read, places to visit, various angles that I never would have thought of in long letters he called “brain dumps.”
And even though he couldn’t make the Headwaters Conference in Gunnison last October on account of illness (Randy almost always came), I figured he’d be there in 2010 and we could argue more at some taproom.
But it won’t happen. Cherish people while you can.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a freelance writer and history buff, and a frequent contributor to The Post.
