Such a tremendous man.

When I heard the news all I could think of was a time with Richard in Salt Lake City, on that big case we all worked on in the late 90’s.  Someone called it a bear of a case.  My memory comes from 1998, after a hard day’s work collecting documents, sitting in a bar in downtown Salt Lake, on a hot summers evening, with people quietly talking, too lethargic to do anything.  A lacklustre two piece beat combo played to a deserted dance floor, ignored by everyone; but then started up with that great Talking Heads number “Burning down the House”, and Richard said, “I really like this one” and stepped onto the dance floor, with me in his wake.  And Richard took off.  He was all over that floor, seriously rocking it out, head banging and wildly electrifying.  His energy pulsed out into the room and people suddenly woke up, left their frozen margarita’s and headed for the dance floor and the room exploded!!! That place rocked all night, and there will still be two very bemused musicians with a beat box and a keyboard, wondering what on earth happened that night, and wishing they could do it all over again.  We all do.  Somewhere, in a far, far away land, Richard Ferris still owns that bit of Utah…

 Richard was a tremendous colleague and most of all, friend.  I really really liked that man.