Alan Huestis

1954 - 2024

Alan Huestis died Feb 19, 2024. He was almost 70. He died unexpectedly or not. He is survived by a bunch of relatives: steps, halves, estranged, divorced and just strange. We all make the best of our relatives and cherish our friends. He holds a cherished place in the junk drawer of my, and many other's memories.

Did he die doing what he loved? Maybe. Did he live life fully? Probably. Most certainly he did not live or die as a cliché, so I will spare you all the usual obligatory obituary tropes. He probably did not believe in a heavenly father, mother or cousin. We live and die one day at a time. We count our blessings and aftermarket body parts and hope nobody notices the limp or the memory slips.

He ate and drank and rambled around a lot. He surfed, fished and played soccer. Soccer is where I met him in the early digits of the 1980s. He took some great outdoors photos and some mediocre wedding shots to pay the bills. He freelanced for Utah TV stations, recorded a lot of stuff on VHS tapes and other ancient formats. He was a pal of Merlin Olsen. He probably died like most people thinking "Oh, EXPLATIVE!, I was not expecting this."

He was a lover of dogs and cats and cameras. We bonded over all of these. Social media kept us together even after he left Logan for Bend, Oregon and eventually Chile with his wife Consuelo. Chile is a really long, skinny country and I can't pinpoint exactly where he lived and died. It did look wonderful. He had a lovely vegetable garden and was transitioning into woodworking. Two weeks before he suddenly died (nobody "passes away") he described a nearly perfect day of food, drink and contentment.

I'll never understand why a Laguna Beach surfing kid come to Logan Utah in 1975. I guess it was the mountains. I'm glad he did. I tried to tell him that calling his business 404 Photography was not a great idea. In the age of computer lingo it means "page missing."

Rest in 404 Alan, you are missing and we miss you. Have a drink, an illegal smile or a cheeseburger. Or find a dog to lick your face in lieu of any flowers. Love ya man, not more than anybody, but as one of the many who have intersected my life.