Rick Samuelson Obituary

Name: Celebration of Life for Rick Samuelson
Start: 2018-04-09T20:00:00.000Z
Location: Community House at Chautauqua

Richard (Rick) Alan Samuelson, avid cyclist, outdoorsman, triathlete, sculptor, classic car and dad joke aficionado, beloved husband and father, died on March 22 nd in his Boulder home surrounded by his family. Rick was born in 1954 to Robert (Bob) Samuelson and Dorothy Kramer Samuelson of Indianapolis, Indiana. He graduated from Pike High School in Indianapolis in 1973, and earned a BA in Psychology from Fort Lewis College in 1978 in Durango, Colorado. In 1986, he met the love of his life, Laura Coates Samuelson (Kugeler) of Boulder, and they married in October of that year. In 1988, he co-founded Foothills Machinery Sales, a successful business based in Broomfield. He adored and was so proud of his children, Laura Ann, 28, and Tucker, 24. He was wise, gentle, and good-humored and felt most himself on a bicycle under the sun, in a kayak, skiing through trees, or bending metal in his shop. He trusted life and taught those around him to appreciate the beauty and silliness inherent in the little things. He is survived by his wife, his children, his sister Sara of Bozeman, Montana, his brother Joe of St. Louis, Missouri, and best of friends Jamie Morin and Paul Richards of Boulder, Colorado. A celebration of Rick's life will be held at 2pm on Monday, April 9th in the Community House at Chautauqua. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his name to the Nature Conservancy.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by The Daily Camera on Apr. 2, 2018.

Memories and Condolences
for Rick Samuelson

2 Entries

Mike Browning

April 9, 2018

I first met Rick in my fifth grade class at Central Elementary, Pike Township, New Augusta Indiana. We formed a friendship then that has lasted thru all of these decades of change and growth. Back then we got into some mischief (what do you expect - we were 5th grade boys). In high school, we were in a pretty close knit group of friends that hung out at Morgan Sefrankas' trailer on Friday and Saturday nights, doing what teenagers back then did. We listened to a whole bunch of really good rock and roll music, along with "other" activities and entertainment, went to concerts, partied, so on and so forth. Rick had a Jeep CJ-5 back then and I remember one night it had snowed real hard and people were sliding off the road all over our stomping grounds, so Rick just drove around in his jeep and pulled them out for fun. On another occasion, we were farting around right after school and took a "short cut" with Ricks Jeep along a fresh pipeline route and thru a field. This was in early spring in Indiana, which means mud, mud, mud!!! We came upon a water filled mud hole and Rick asked me which side he should go around on. I said go right, no go left, and Rick said, hell, I'll just go thru it. Well, that hole was about 5 feet deep and we were STUCK!!! Water was pouring in Ricks door (soft top of course)so we exited out my side. Fortunately for us, a farmer friend of ours, Mike Bernhardt was close by with a John Deere tractor. He just shook his head and extracted the Jeep from the monster suction of that mud hole (I thought it was going to pull his Jeep in half). On New Years Eve, 1974/1975, Rick came to a party at my house on Eugene Smiths farm and told us all he was going to Fort Lewis College in Durango Colorado. He had been out in the Weminuche Wilderness area on an Outward Bound event the summer before and loved the Colorado southwest. I had been out to Colorado that same summer and was also determined to move there. In early June that year I joined Rick in Durango, at his house at 3078 East 3rd Ave. He is the reason I moved to Colorado and have lived here for 43 years. We had a lot of good times living in Durango. I rented Ricks garage behind his house and had my small welding shop in it and slept in the loft. So many get-togethers, excursions, trips, outings, and activities started at Ricks house. It was our center of social interaction in Durango. Rick, Paul Richards and I made a trip home at Christmas, 1975, in a 1963 Ford Falcon station wagon we bought for $125 after it had been "damaged" by a friend avoiding collision with an elk. The lower swing arm on the left front suspension was completely folded under the drivers floor area. I "repaired" it laying in the snow using a welding truck from my employer to straighten things out and with some junk parts from Heizers' wrecking yard. We took off in that thing and drove it to Indiana and back with four males and a dog in the dead of winter. Crazy.... Rick and I also made that drive a few years later in my '51 Willys pickup listening to 8 track tapes (with headphones - the truck was too loud without them)smoking pipes and counting the hundreds of shooting stars in the clear winter night sky over Kansas. I remember one stop we made for dinner at the "ATLASTA" Motel in Missouri on the way back - we heehawed a bit about the name, but the food was good.

Many of our childhood pals we hung out with as teenagers have also now passed away. I don't understand it. The proportions in our group are way higher than the population in general. Some of them went by accidents. Others, maybe you could attribute it to life style. In Ricks case, its just plain not fair. I've lost another life long friend. I regret that I didn't stay in closer contact with Rick over the past couple of decades. I bought a lathe and a mill from him back in the early nineties. Then life got real busy with kids and career, and then grandkids. I'll always remember Ricks great sense of humor when think of him. He used to joke about the scraps of metal I had around his garage in Durango - he referred to them as "metal sprouts". When I talked to him right after his surgery, he said he too now had some metal sprouts, to which I replied that I now had a metal forest. I'll always remember him as a young man and a particular Traffic song that we listened to when we were young sticks in my mind - "Many a mile to freedom", and the following lines in particular:

"If you should ask me to give you the reason for life that we know
Then together we flow like the river
And together we melt like the snow"

I hope you'll take a minute and listen to the song at the link below and that it gives you peace.

Mike Browning

https://www.bing.com/search?q=traffic+many+miles+to+freedom&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IESR4N&pc=EUPP_

Jyoti Sharp

April 2, 2018

I only met Rick once, ever so briefly. But learned more of him over these past weeks from those who were honored to care for him. It's a rare gift to witness, even from a distance, the love he eminated. Mostly for his family, but in the end to all who were graced to spend time in his presence. His goodness will be missed in this world.

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