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Dave Rike
Back when I was a member of FAPA, oh, twenty years and more agone now, attending collations up at Seth Goldberg's gave me the opportunity to confab with guys who were old-time fans even then. One of them was Dave Rike, whom I've recently learned from F770 died four months ago. You can read about his role in legendary fan history over there; here's a few words about the guy I knew.
Dave was a character, someone you had to take as he came, and he could be fun and invigorating in doses. Perhaps he was slightly autistic, for he had speech patterns and mannerisms I associate with that syndrome, but if so he was the most extroverted autistic around. He was very talkative, very curious and interested in things, very willing to pursue a point down to its roots without being argumentative or defensive about it. He always dressed informally, often in flannel, like the retired blue-collar worker I suppose he was.
He lived in Crockett, a tiny worn-down industrial village built around the old sugar-processing plant on the shore of the Carquinez Strait, in a post office box as far as I knew. You could always reach him on the phone, though it had some kind of processor that made his voice sound like a robot's. When he came to FAPA collations, he would often bring with him the even more legendary Redd Boggs. Redd was as taciturn as Dave was not, and very retiring. I think it must have taken someone of Dave's energy and enthusiasm to overcome the inertia of the prospect of getting Redd to go anywhere. Dave did enjoy these fannish gatherings, and he had a good heart.
Dave was a character, someone you had to take as he came, and he could be fun and invigorating in doses. Perhaps he was slightly autistic, for he had speech patterns and mannerisms I associate with that syndrome, but if so he was the most extroverted autistic around. He was very talkative, very curious and interested in things, very willing to pursue a point down to its roots without being argumentative or defensive about it. He always dressed informally, often in flannel, like the retired blue-collar worker I suppose he was.
He lived in Crockett, a tiny worn-down industrial village built around the old sugar-processing plant on the shore of the Carquinez Strait, in a post office box as far as I knew. You could always reach him on the phone, though it had some kind of processor that made his voice sound like a robot's. When he came to FAPA collations, he would often bring with him the even more legendary Redd Boggs. Redd was as taciturn as Dave was not, and very retiring. I think it must have taken someone of Dave's energy and enthusiasm to overcome the inertia of the prospect of getting Redd to go anywhere. Dave did enjoy these fannish gatherings, and he had a good heart.
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Well, my ignorance really is appalling sometimes. I didn't know that Redd Boggs was a Bay Area fan, for instance.
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Dave was an instrumental part of my fannish life in those years. We would go to computer swapmeets together in the days before Microsoft Windows became the standard PC operating platform. He was obsessed with collecting classic CP/M and MS-DOS software, particularly word processing programs. I remember his glee in finding a vintage copy of "Electric Pencil" and Dan Bricklin's "Visicalc". Dave didn't actually have a working MS-DOS computer, having gone the same route as Redd Boggs and Art Widner in transferring his fanac to dedicated portable word processors instead of computers. But that didn't stop his zeal for collecting legacy word processing and spreadsheet software.. Dave also encouraged me to pub my ish, helping me to run off issue #3 of Whistlestar at his house on one of his many Gestetners.
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