RIC SAYRE--'A Racing-Flat Filled with Blood May Be Where Dolphins Play'--with music-bed from "Rhoombaorfeu" and as voice-only

April 6, 2025

As RIC inspired others, he was inspired by his partner PHYLLIS, a painter, to sculpt paint in ceramics. (NEELY SPENCE in her Blog about Ric from June 2011, presented whole in the Text Post that precedes this Audio, relates how Phyllis and Ric welcomed her and her sisters MARGEAUX and REYNAH, both painters too, as well as her Dad STEVE and her Mom KIRSTEN into their home in Ashland, Oregon, that month of running and training.)

Ric depicted Dolphins sporting around in one of his pieces. That he could be whimsical like that, identifying with fellow Mammals whose intelligence we scarcely know, while also so tough a competitor that he made ROD DIXON marvel) was part of Ric’s rare amalgam. I miss him more every time he comes to mind.

The music-bed “Rhoombaorfeu” is one version of a tune that I composed on a 37-key Roland Synthesizer for the XPand Album with JOHN BAKER and TERBO TED in 1994. The tune celebrates Brasil. “Rhoombalicious” is the version on our Album. The version here samples a voice and voices breakthrough and beautiful, mythic movie of 1959, “Black Orpheus”. Its positivity, too, felt like a good fit for Ric.

One Racing-Flat Filled with Blood                                                                                        May Be Where Dolphins Play

One of Ric Sayre's racing-flats                                                                                                        Was always soaked with blood 
After a Marathon
In years when Ric was winning Marathons,
From the middle 1980s into the early 1990s.
Ric's right foot was a little smaller than his left 
And took more pounding from his strides 
Over 26.2 miles.

"I've never even sat in a Mercedes,"
Ric told the Los Angeles Times'
Mike Downey after winning the 1986 Marathon there. 
We laughed then about
How City of Los Angeles Marathon Director Bill Burke                                                            And Mercedes North America must have
Reacted to that quote
On the front page of Monday's Times Sports section.

The next year Ric and Sister Marion Irvine                                                                          Led an Athletes United for Peace
Group to Sandinist Nicarauga.
The tour culminated with the El Replieque
Run from Managua to Masaya in tropical June.                                                                             Ric went out hard, leading by two minutes                                                                      Halfway through the 30 kilometers,
And staggered to the Finish,
Second to a veteran of the Contra war.                                                                                "People there," Ric said later,
"Don't even have ballpoint-pens,
Much less the bandages they need."

Ric was/is one
You would want with you in a war.
He would be as good as healer
As he would as mediator
Or as soldier.
He would be stalwart--great--
In whatever role he and his fate chose.

In 2005 we laughed a lot
While riding north from Paso Robles
After the USAT&F National 10-K Championships.
Ric had another Subaru station-wagon,
Packed as if to survive the Apocalypse,
And more sacks of nuts and berries
That he shared for nourishment.
So many characters and funny moments
We could recall.
Gidamis Shahanga and his new-found masseuse,
Zak Barie taking a taxi from Pittsburgh to Wheeling
After midnight to make the race the next morning,
Police at the Biltmore in Los Angeles,
Police outside the stand-off in Oka, Quebec,
Derrick May with head on table
In the bass-and-ganja-heavy 1:00-a.m. reggae bar in Houston                                            After Derrick won the Marathon
And Ric the U.S. Championship
In Houston's 1987 Tenneco event,
We laughed too
About members of both Bush Administrations' Cabinets.

The last time we spoke, early this past June,
Ric and I agreed that fear is
Near the root of evil,
That fear is always near why people fail themselves, 
And that courage
Is fundamental to positive thoughts and acts.


"May you always be courageous!" 
"Got to have a good vibe!"
Ric's sudden passing feels as cruel
And unfair as it is out-of-the-blue.
We'd also agreed that you can't expect justice from fate. 
But, we thought, what you get,
Every moment of living,
Is what you do.

Now is the river whose flow never stops. 
Now is a time to remember
With gratitude.
Now is the time for seeing through. 
Now is time for tears of honor
And cleansing toward the model.
Now is time to pause, draw and paint.
Now is time to appreciate in stained glass
Wild dolphins' play.
Now is the snow melting into the Rogue.
Now is the lark, the jays outside windows,
The damned mosquitoes.
Now is Toothpick
And new sights for the runner every day without end. 
Now is Shakespeare under the stars.
Now is for struggles Shakespeare would embrace. 
Now and forever is Ric's kind question
From his warrior's jaw and blue-eyed gaze
As constant as grace,
"How are you doing?" across any space,
Now is Ric's quick laugh and helping hand.
Now is the salmon hurtling homeward to spawn. 
Now is Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, 
Joni Mitchell, Cesaria Evora and Steely Dan.
Now is the time to remember heroes
And heroines.
Now is the time when beliefs re-arise.
Now is the time to be arm-in-arm under sun                                                                        Or by a fire.

Saint Ric? Well, no, but close.
How close more know
Now, the one indelible legacy
Or ever-growing piece of art
(Like the "art" Steve Prefontaine said
He wished to give people through running a race) 
A life great with accomplishments
And generosity leaves.

First: June 26, 2011

RELATED