To Richard Jacobs & Family

Sharing good memory’s of Richard by John Baker.

I have known the Jacobs Family since around 1974.

Richard and Donna were my neighbors and became a lot like second parents.

As second parents, Donna did not let me get away with anything at all.

Richard would let me get away with a lot, if he wouldn’t get in trouble himself.

I felt fortunate having the Jacobs as neighbors, as they had four young daughters and I was the only boy on our dead end street. We all became life time friends.

When I was young, I use to go hunting with Richard and Sandra a lot.

On our first hunting trip, Richard would tell Sandra and me all the rules of hunting and how to hunt Deer and how important it was to be very quite.

I think it was Grass Mountain or Black Butte Mountain that we would hunt.

We were told by Richard to stick close by him, he said that this country was really brushy and he did not want to loose us.

When hunting in the woods with Richard, Sandra and I would follow him close and all of the sudden he would stop; either Sandra or I would run into him.

Richard would ask us not to do that and he never got mad about it.

This was amazing because we did it all day long.

As time went on we got better at hunting.

Richard started letting us walk about 50 yards away from him, so we could scare something out of the brush towards him.

One day we were walking down a hill, Richard told us to walk as quite as we could to the bottom.

Richard left us and then we hear him yell “start walking”, so we walked down the hill and about ten minutes later we hear some crashing through the brush.

Then it would quit.

Then it would pick back up.

We could hear it getting closer, so Sandra and I were looking at one another thinking the worst, a BEAR. We were looking for a tree that we could climb up.

But, as the noise got louder and closer we decided to run.

Then we would stop and listen and we heard nothing.

We thought WOW we just got lucky.

All of a sudden Richard pops out and Sandra lets off the biggest and loudest scream. The scream was like what you would hear in a scary movie.

Richard said “what going on?”

So Sandra told her Dad about what we had heard, he said, “I didn’t hear anything.” Sandra and I swore there was something big in the brush that was after us.

I found out later in time when Richard hunted, he walked fast threw the brush and then he would stop and listen for deer. Well, when he moved threw the brush he sounded a lot like a big bear not caring about how much noise he made.

Richard was the bear.

Another time when we went hunting with Richard, Sandra and I was a little bored.

So Sandra and I took a walk and we found a Caterpillar D-9 in the forest.

I decided to jump into the driver’s seat and started looking for a key.

We found a key under the driver seat, and then I tried to start the cat with no luck.  Sandra tried starting the cat and of course with lady luck she got it first try.

After starting the cat we started moving slowly, we were moving at a snails pace.

Being young and not knowing any different, we thought that driving the Cat was cool and didn’t think of the consequences.

UNTIL, we noticed that we were running out of road.

Trying to hit the brakes with no success, both of us were in a panic. 

We tried doing everything that we could to stop.

We came up with a plan to let it run into a tree, and hopefully it would stall out.

But Nope, it kept on a running, and the tree was starting to lean.

Richard finds us in trouble gets on the cat and stops it.

I was so relieved; I thought it was the end for Sandra and me.

Richard said “what were you guys thinking”?

He was a Mad.

Thinking that this was the end for us, I decided to tell Richard that it was my entire fault to save Sandra from getting into trouble.

To my surprise he didn’t start yelling at us, he just talked to us and explained the rules about other peoples stuff. I could see he was mad, but he never lost his temper.

We left for home, and he never said a word about what happened again.

Richard always treated me with love, and never made me feel bad for making some very stupid mistakes. This is something I well never forget.

When I see a Caterpillar in the Woods or think I hear a bear in the woods, I think that Richard is still around looking after me.

Richard you are always in my thoughts and well be missed.

John Baker

OK, Richard and Donna are the Parents of Four girls that lived across the street from me, when i was a young boy, and i was the only Boy to live on a dead end street with all Girls.

So this is why i could not stand up, in front of the now full grown girls.

When you grow up with all girls and you are the only boy, you tend to pick up some of there Habits, Like Crying, and you become more caring, and Trust me this is not a Bad Thing to have when you become older.

In the letter that i wrote, I talk about a girl Named Sandra, Sandra was the oldest girl of the four girls, so she was the closest to being my age, so we hung out alot more.

I did hang out with the rest of the Family also.

John

PS. All of the Family memebers were Happy that i went to the funeral and they were Happy that i wrote the letter.