In Memory of Richard A. Fanning (1956 - 1993)

I met my dear friend, Rich Fanning, shortly before Election Day 1984. We were coworkers at Intran Corporation. We became great friends while working on a forms design software package called MetaForm, written in C and running on an early version of Sun workstations. We enjoyed the Far Side (Boneless Chicken Ranch!) and Ernie Pooks Comeeks (by the great Lynda Barry), dining at Applebee's, and drinking at Bennigan's. We made jokes about evil twins, bad spelling, fashion no-nos, and argyle socks.

Here's Rich working on his "winter" car in the Intran parking lot; October 1986, Minnetonka, Minnesota. It was an awful shade of green, but it ran and who cared if it got covered in salt during the messy Minnesota winters?

When I moved to Dallas in 1987, Rich volunteered to help drive the Ryder truck down with me. He brought his boom box and we enjoyed some Peter Gabriel, Patsy Cline, and Eurythmics tunes. We stopped in Kansas City for dinner and then somewhere in Oklahoma for a spectacular view of dawn breaking over the hills.

Rich moved to the Bay Area to work for Island Graphics in 1988. Here's Rich standing beside his year-round car (an MR2) in a beach parking lot; May 1992, California coast. This was the last time I saw Rich before he died. I had a three-hour layover in San Francisco on my way to San Diego, so Rich packed a picnic lunch for us (with two kinds of everything: breads, cheeses, meats, condiments, cookies, fruit, soft drinks, and wine). We both got sunburned (even though it was overcast) and we had a wonderful time.

My dear friend, Rich Fanning, passed away on February 3, 1993. I will miss him forever.

Debbie Schilling