News from Richard Kiiski

Richard "Dick" Kiiski

 

SAUSALITO, CA -- Richard "Dick" Kiiski is alive and well, living with his beautiful wife, Terry, and their amazing, orange-and-white tabby, LeRoi, on a palatial "floating home" on picturesque Richardson Bay, a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in Marvelous Marin County.

After graduating from GHS, Kiiski served three years in the Marine Corps -- in South Carolina, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, North Carolina, Okinawa, and North Carolina, again. Along the way, he picked up a trace of a Southern drawl, prompting his buds to call him "Sagebrush."

Discharged in '63, Kiiski returned to Gardner for a couple of months, drank a lot of beer at the PACC and the bar at the Colonial Hotel, then migrated out to the Cal Coast Empire; first to Los Angeles, then to the S. F. Bay Area, where he's holed-up most of the time ever since.

In '69, he earned a B. A. in English Lit (with a minor in Journalism) from San Francisco State. (He also covered the "black and brown student" strike for Newsweek.) He next enrolled in the Graduate School of Creative Writing, but bowed out after one semester, having decided that a little more "life experience" might be in order before attempting to chronicle the world, its inhabitants, and their various and sundry tales.

Followed next a string of "colorful" employment opportunities in a variety of positions, in a host of industries, lasting anywhere from one day (garbage collector) to ten years (bartender). At one time or another, under one circumstance or another, Kiiski made a living (or something closely approximating it) in the following fields of endeavor (listed here, for organizational purposes, in ascending alpha order):

Advertising copywriter, bookkeeper, carpenter, delivery truck driver, dishwasher, executive-assistant, exhibit-space salesman, graphic artist, house-husband, housepainter, laborer, logger and mill hand, marathon canoe racer, office temp, operations manager, reporter and photographer, secret shopper, stock clerk, web designer ... and one or two others that, he claims, he's not at liberty to discuss at this time.

Over the years, Kiiski has been blessed with a number of fascinating relationships, with a number of delightful, interesting women. His latest, with Terry, has by far been the best and even holds the all-time record -- 25 years and counting, as of last May.

 

 

Terry

 

The celebrity artist Andy Warhol once famously said that everyone gets his/her "15 minutes of fame." Here's Kiiski's, the short version:

In November, '76, armed with double-bladed kayak paddles, two 50-cent compasses and a pint of Old Crow, he and John Baker, a guy he'd met in L.A., navigated a decked-over 18-foot "AuSable Guide Special" racing canoe across the widest part of Lake Michigan -- from Manitowoc, WI, to Big Sable Point, MI -- 60 miles of open, wind-swept water, the mid-west equivalent of boating on the High Seas.

The trip itself took a little over 18 hours. It included a major storm, a failed air-sea rescue operation by the Coast Guard and a near-fatal 10 P.M. collision with a coastal freighter -- all before the duo finally landed on the Michigan shore later that evening and found a place in the headlands to camp out until the following noon, when a Coast Guard boat "found them" -- back on the water, paddling South.

The story of the crossing hit the front page of all the major newspapers in the greater Milwaukee-Chicago area.

According to regional scribes, it was the first time Lake Michigan had been "successfully crossed in a canoe since the French and Indian Wars.”

It almost goes without saying that, since the Big Lake Trip, Kiiski has dialed back the adventurism a few clicks.

For the past 13 years, he and Terry have run a home-based business, providing Classical, light-Classical and popular string music for weddings, parties and corporate events throughout the Bay Area. A professional cellist with an extensive background in chamber music, musical theater, movie and video game recording, Terry talks to the clients, deals with the agents, hires the musicians and plays the gigs.

Kiiski provides behind-the-scenes artistic, clerical, bookkeeping, managerial and technical support -- and plays with the kitty!

Kiiski's current interests include: reading, writing, photography, playing the trumpet, talking politics, sharpening his "wilderness survival" skills ("because, well, you just never know ... ") and telling "sea stories" -- as well as investigating whatever else happens to spark his interest.

Together, he and Terry enjoy listening to Classical music, cooking, eating out, laughing a lot, staying in shape, hiking in the nearby hills, kayaking on the Bay, taking long road trips ... Oh, and hanging out on the dock with their dearly beloved, frequently quirky neighbors.

The next "Big Project" on the horizon for Kiiski and Terry: "Figure out what [they] want to do when [they] grow up!"

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