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My email address is richard@surefiremarcom.com and my cell is 503-314-0058.
I’ve lived in Oregon since 1993 and now make my home in Oregon City, Oregon, with my wife Jeanne of 42 years. I’m retired from a career of digital communications and project management.
I’ve visited Billings often in recent years, but now my father is passed and my mother moved to Memphis in 2021. I still own the home where I grew up on Avenue E and rent it out, so that gives me an excuse to visit on occasion.
My daughter Carrie, 38, lives in Phoenix with her new husband and makes her living selling printing services. My son John, 36, is a captain for Delta Airlines. He flies 737s to cities throughout the U.S. and Mexico. He lives in Gig Harbor, Wash., with his wife and our two grandkiddos, ages 5 and 7. We’re a close family and despite the distances, spend a lot of time together.
Our family shares a love of the outdoors. My passion is salmon and steelhead fishing. My wife’s an avid bird watcher. I’m not the bird nerd Jeanne is, but I’ve joined her on some exciting adventures that featured some bird watching, including a fantastic trip to Greece with our daughter in spring 2022. I lived in Greece during college and fell in love with the Greek zest for life. I learned to speak and dance like them, so it was a thrill to return and re-live my college adventure.
We have a cherished family tradition I’ll share with you. Each August, for more than a decade, our family and friends gather for a camping trip at a state park near Astoria, Oregon, for up to two weeks. We enjoy the crazy-good fishing during the biggest salmon run on the West Coast, as the fall fish enter the Columbia River system. We bring vacuum-sealers and a half-freezer and process our catch in camp every day. My 5-year-old grandson is already addicted to fishing like his dad and I.
Life has taught me – and keeps reminding me through failure or disappointment -- to distrust the fickle promises of experience, achievements, career success or relationships to make me feel worthwhile and significant. God’s unconditional, unmerited love for me has become the defining part of my identity. That’s my rock of ages.
For the last several years, I’ve led a Christian men's group with about 20 guys. Men tend to isolate, but solitary confinement is the worst form of punishment. So we resist that and meet weekly to share authentically about life and faith. I've formed fond friendships, sharing in meaningful conversations at campfires, coffee shops and backyard BBQs.
This fall I faced the most difficult trial of my life. In October, two weeks after my daughter’s wedding, a ferocious abdominal cancer took me by surprise. A CT scan showed it was bigger than a basketball; I was short of breath and could no longer eat solid foods.
The Saturday before my surgery, my men’s group hosted a breakfast for me. It was billed as pancakes, eggs and bacon. But since I needed a liquid diet, they covertly made it an all-smoothy breakfast, to eat in solidarity with me. I felt loved — a wonderful answer to the many prayers spoken for my encouragement and strength before surgery.
On Nov. 7, a team of surgeons removed the tumor in a 7.5-hour surgery, along with nine feet of my small intestine. A week later, I contracted Sepsis, a blood infection with a 27% mortality rate for hospitalized patients. I was hospitalized 15 days and am still taking drugs to combat the infection as I write this on Dec. 5.
Recovering from this has brought many discomforts. I’m very weak; my weight is down 30 lbs. This isn’t the carefree retirement gig I signed up for!
But I feel supported by caring family and friends and the sense that my Heavenly Father is leaning close, bearing me up. I’m SO thankful that all my cancer was safely removed. But as much as I want it to never return, my hope is not in a cure, but in something much more certain and eternal.
Look forward to re-connecting, hearing your life stories and what you’ve learned on your 50-year journey from Billings Senior High!
