I was looking at some old photos the other day and ran across this picture of Ron and me. Ron’s the guy in the curlers. I’m giving him a perm. To be honest, I just applied the magic curling potion. Ruth did the curler part. Ron had gotten caught up in the Afro craze from the late sixties and seventies.
Ron, and his then wife, Diane, were among our Plainwell friends. We spent a lot of time together. A couple of years after we married, our second trip to Vegas was with them. Ron was in law enforcement at the time and occasionally did background checks for the local garbage service owner. When the garbage owner learned of our trip to Vegas, he set Ron and his friends, Ruth and me, up with dinner tickets to a major show at the Riviera. We saw Burt Bacharach, Dion Warwick and Joel Gray. Burt wrote the songs that Dion sang, and Joel was a big Broadway draw.
When we arrived in the showroom, the maitre d escorted the four of us to a table near the rear. Ron slipped him a few dollars and said something like, “I think Mr. Garbage Truck Owner has made other arrangements for us.” We were asked to stay as we were while the maitrre d did some double checking. He returned a couple of minutes later and took us to the front of the showroom. Ruth and Diane rested their arms on the stage floor. We were front row – center. They could reach out and touch Burt, Dion and Joel. It was quite a show.
Ron and Diane helped us move to Lake LeAnn in 1977. They helped us load the moving van we rented and made the drive with us. They, and our new friends, Rick and Jan, unloaded the truck once we arrived at the lake. They spent the night, and after the move, our days with Ron and Diane dwindled in number. They started having children, and our own number grew to five when Michael was born, so a rendezvous became more difficult to schedule. Children have a way of changing their parent’s routines.
Ron became a fireman. He was an active member of the Michigan fire service for over 50 years. In 1978 he was hired by the Kalamazoo Township Fire Department, where he moved up the ranks to fire chief in 2003. He served as the State Fire Marshal from 2009-2011. He founded the nonprofit organization Michigan S.A.F.E. (Smoke Alarms for Everyone), a sustainable, statewide smoke alarm installation program aimed at protecting the high-risk populations of children and older adults. Since the program began, tens of thousands of smoke alarms have been installed throughout Michigan.
The last time I saw Ron was just prior to my retirement from Britton. We had several building projects during my tenure there. The last one included a new cafeteria which doubled as a performing arts center. It included a second story featuring a control booth. The control booth held the electronic equipment for the center and provided a birds eye view of the festivities below.
Like all such projects, the building plans were scrutinized by a variety of state officials. The three largest hoops were meeting the requirements set forth by the state electrical inspector, health inspector, and fire marshal. Many of the reviews took place after the building was under construction. While our architect was fully aware of the requirements that these entities set forth, we occasionally needed to make modifications to the original plans before the building was approved for occupancy. Most such modifications were minor and easily addressed. The second story of the performing arts center became a larger issue.
When the building was in the eleventh hour of completion, the fire marshal reviewer placed a major hurtle in front of us. Our architect met with the reviewer in Lansing to discuss the project and possible solutions, but the reviewer maintained his position and the project was stopped until a solution could be approved. Our architect and construction manager estimated the changes would run approximately $50,000. Had we known earlier in the process, the cost would have been much less. The reviewer’s delay put us in a situation that required major modifications to sections of the building that had already been completed. I was furious and had no intentions of complying without seeking all possible recourses.
We had one. I requested a hearing before the Michigan State Fire Safety Board. Upon my arrival in Lansing, I went to the restroom. My old friend, Ron, was there. We stood shoulder to shoulder getting caught up on the past thirty years and, somewhere in the conversation, I discovered he was the chairman of the board that was about to review our case. He wished me luck.
TBC