Fond farewell to the Prankster: Admirers eulogize an irrepressible soul
 |
 |
|
Fond farewell to the Prankster: Admirers eulogize an irrepressible soul By SUSAN PALMER
LITERARY FIREPOWER and prankster antics - the legendary elements of Ken Kesey's public persona - sat at the back of the bus Wednesday. Instead, friends and family celebrated Kesey's everyday humanity - his big heart, his humor and generosity.
More than 1,000 people packed into the McDonald Theatre and spilled out into the street for Kesey's memorial service - some dressed in the dark colors of mourning and others in the Day-Glo shades of Kesey's bus, Further, made famous 30 years ago in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." Kesey himself, laid to rest in a coffin dip-painted in swirling colors, held center stage under yellow, red and blue spotlights in the same theater where he performed magic tricks as a child. The marquee outside read simply: "Sparks Fly Up, Ken Kesey." The author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sometimes a Great Notion" died Saturday at age 66 after complications from liver cancer surgery. Part rainbow celebration and part somber service, the memorial lasted almost two hours.
It included recent video of Kesey performing as an old-time preacher and music by Grammy-winning composer-guitarist Mason Williams with pianist-composer Art Maddox and Merry Prankster guitarist Steve Schuster. Afterward, Kesey was buried in a private service beside his son, Jed, at the family's Pleasant Hill farm. The world knew Kesey as a pioneer experimenter with LSD in the '60s and a novelist whose first two books - written before he was 30 - are considered American classics. But those closest to Kesey remembered him as a man always questing, always alive in the moment.
They focused on Kesey's infectious joy, what friend and local restaurant owner Ray Sewell called his "absolute now-ist" approach to living. University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer shared Kesey's many contributions to the school as teacher, Duck booster and student recruiter. Kesey graduated from the University of Oregon and returned to teach creative writing classes there. But what really touched him, Frohnmayer said, was the package of books - one for each member of the family - that Kesey sent the Frohnmayers at a particularly rough juncture during daughter Kirsten's battle with a rare and ultimately fatal illness. "It was just an act of incredible kindness," Frohnmayer said. In the days since Kesey's death, thousands of people have mailed condolences to the family and many have said the same thing: Kesey was a father figure who was patient and accessible, Frohnmayer said. "He was a good man and a great man who would have preferred being known as good," he said. Frohnmayer ended his remarks with a Latin memorial, which he translated: "If you seek his monument, look around you." Kesey's agent, Sterling Lord, talked of the larger-than-life pleasure the author infused into everything he did. When Kesey and his Merry Prankster pals reached New York on their fabled road trip, he called up Lord and said: "When we hit New York, the city just rolled over on its back and purred." Kesey's longtime Prankster sidekick and friend Ken Babbs had plenty of memories - the crazy days on the road, the time the two renounced writing as a tedious pursuit, the years it took to chronicle the bus tour on video, the stacks of Kesey's unpublished writing, which eventually will be available.
He also recounted Kesey's delight in the confusion over the bus' name: Was it Furthur or Further? Leave 'em guessing, Kesey advised Babbs. Kesey's friendship and loyalty were unquestioned, Babbs said, and he noted that the author wasn't generous only with friends but with strangers, too. He would hang around at book signings until he had signed every last book, paper, piece of underwear or whatever. Sometimes that meant lingering after bookstores closed, sitting outside on the steps, Babbs said. Knots of friends and fans told the same kinds of stories before and after the service as they milled about in front of the theater. Pleasant Hill friends Linda Loux and Rose Smith raised their own children alongside the Keseys and knew them as friends and concerned parents who were warm, unpretentious and giving. "Ken was wonderful because he was so real. He never pretended he was somebody else," Loux said. Will Lindquist, a candle maker who knew Kesey only casually, said he had a special interest in young people that drew them in. "He was a real role model of keeping your feet on the ground and your head in the sky," Lindquist said. Kesey would open his home to people, said Scott Morison, who met the author 15 years ago when a friend took a writing class from Kesey and Morison tagged along on a visit at the author's home. But Kesey wasn't indiscriminate about who he let in, Morison said. "If you were unkind or uncool, he could smell that from a mile away," he said. Most people can hardly grasp that he's gone, Morison said. "It's like there's a missing color of the rainbow, like psychedelia has lost one of its colors," he said. After the service, pallbearers carried Kesey's coffin from the stage past mourners and outside where his bus, Further, sat waiting. A lone bagpiper played a chorus of "Amazing Grace" and the soft chime of a single bell sounded and then faded. Further pulled away from the curb and the clouds parted briefly. A narrow band of sunshine lit the sky even as the first hint of rain began, and for the briefest of moments, a rainbow arced across the sky. Related: Bob Welch: Kesey, Oregon are inseparable Copyright © 2001 The Register-Guard |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Original material ©1996-2024 Mr. Sharkey | All rights reserved