Swans Commentary » swans.com June 20, 2005  

 


 

Richard And Me
 

 

by Deck Deckert

 

 

 

 

 

(Swans - June 20, 2005)  Sitting beside my desk is a box filled with magazines intended for Richard Mackintosh -- good liberal magazines like The Progressive, Harper's, Extra! (a publication of FAIR), newspapers like The Progressive Populist, and newsletters like The Washington Spectator and The Lowdown (Jim Hightower's publication).

Good publications for a contributor to Swans and ones he always appreciated.

He'll never get to read them now, but wherever his spirit has gone, I hope he can find the equivalent. Better yet, I hope the next world won't be so mad as to require these few oases of sanity.

Richard was a kind and gentle spirit, and a good and gracious friend.

I have -- make that "had," such a hard word to say -- known him only two years, a short, but tumultuous time for both of us. Within a week of my meeting him, I had a stroke, which made me a little hard to communicate with. But he managed, making frequent visits to the hospital and to my home and buoying my spirits immensely. We celebrated my wife's birthday in a rehabilitation ward, Richard and Jacque were the only other two guests present and all that was needed to make it a festive occasion. A few months later, Richard became the patient, his worsening heart condition requiring frequent hospitalizations.

But despite this, he became an instant friend, one to whom I felt closer than people I've known for decades. We would start by talking of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. But inevitably the conversation would turn to the present state of the world, national politics, the perverse, insane nature of the federal government, and the corporate domination of all that is. Then we would both sigh, acknowledge that we were talking to the converted, and talk of more personal and mundane things.

A world without his good humor, his intelligence, and his kindness is so much poorer. He will be sorely missed.


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Internal Resources

Richard Macintosh on Swans

 

About the Author

Deck Deckert on Swans (with bio).

 

Legalese

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This Edition's Internal Links

A Teacher to Emulate: Richard Macintosh (1933-2005) - Gilles d'Aymery

My Friend, Richard - Alma A. Hromic

Richard Macintosh's Archives

American Mental Health - Michael Doliner

Effective And Not So Effective Side Effects - Philip Greenspan

The Insurgent Word: Impeachment - Gerard Donnelly Smith

Rwanda: The General's Story - Mick Collins Interview

US Foreign Policy Toward Iran And Iran's Nuclear Program - Ardeshir Ommani

Brecht In Hollywood - Charles Marowitz

McLibel: Food For Thought And Inspiration For The Soul - Jan Baughman

Blips #21 - From the Editor's desk

Letters to the Editor


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URL for this work: http://www.swans.com/library/art11/rdeck048.html
Published June 20, 2005



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