LOSING A FRIEND

21 December 2021

The older you get, the more people your age die.

Ned told me this morning that he was surprised that Steve Erickson, the trumpeter for Lawsuit, had not been at their ZOOM party, especially since he told them he would be there.

This afternoon Ned told me that Steve's father had died yesterday and Steve was here in Davis, and had flown out here knowing his father was dying, but didn't make it in time.

Glen Erickson was a professor of Physics at UC Davis and also a photographer.  He took photos of every Lawsuit concert.

I don't know how many pictures he took at each concert, but dozens.  He always had two sets printed and gave me a set as well.

In truth, his photos weren't always very good, but the ones that WERE good were wonderful (see Photo of the Day).

He rode his bike everywhere, with his unique hat and we often saw him when we were out.  He and his wife, before she died of cancer, fostered crack babies (babies born of addicted mothers) and I was so impressed with how they took care of these addicted babies.

When we were making a trip to England in 2001 we planned to visit our friend Sian, who had a house on one of the small islands in Orkney, we learned that Glen and his wife went to Orkney on vacation nearly every year and they gave us information about the island and the prehistoric places to visit there.  Before that, I had never heard of Orkney!

After his wife died, and Lawsuit ended, we rarely saw him, until my mother's dementia started getting worse.  I signed up to attend a dementia workshop at the Senior center and was surprised to discover that Glen was leading it.  His mother died of dementia and he felt he had the early stages of it.  I went to the workshop for several months and learned a lot about dementia.

Glen Erickson

(It was difficult for me to attend the meetings sometimes.  Glen and the woman whom he eventually married had terrible things to say about one of the doctors in town, whom they thought was just awful.  I didn't dare mention that not only was the doctor a friend, but I had done work for him for 30 years!)

We haven't seen Glen in several years, but it is sad to know that he is gone.