Waaayyy Up and Down

As told by Kyle and Cameron at Russ’s wake, edited by Kathy

Kyle: One time I was playing golf with my dad and he was applying sunscreen to his arms because he had finally gone to a skin doctor who told him he needed to start using it. He swung the club on his next shot, the club flew out of his hands and he just screamed, “God damn sunscreen! I’d rather have cancer!” And then the next minute, it was just, “Hey, hand me a ball,” as if nothing else had happened. I believe at that moment that he would rather have had skin cancer than have that club fly out of his hands.

Cameron: Russ was the most intelligent person I’ve ever known, the most generous person and the most memorable and certainly most loud person I’ve ever known. One time we were driving home from playing golf and something sad was playing on the radio. As we drove down the road with the top down and he slammed the radio button and said, “I don’t want to listen to sad music. Music is supposed to make you happy. I can’t stand sad music. I HATE sad music.” And then two seconds later he asked me what we wanted to do for lunch in a completely different tone.