Dave Perry’s comments at Bruce’s memorial service at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma, Washington, on 7 August 1999:

I want to thank all of you for being with us today, for the great love that you have expressed for Bruce and his family, and for your tremendous kindness toward us in this difficult time. We know that you feel his loss as much as we do.

I want to thank the people who are leading today’s service: Pastor Nesvig, our old friend Pastor Lee Kluth, my cousin Pastor Mark Nelson, Father Jim Laurenzo (Lisa’s uncle), David Dahl and Maynard Hedegaard for their wonderful musical contributions, Lisa’s sister Nancy and our cousin Ed Kushner for reading the scripture, and the friends who shared their memories of Bruce: Lynn Jacobson, Steve Jewels, and Kevin Vance. I also want to thank everyone who sent flowers, created bulletins, ushered, or made coffee and cookies for the reception.

I want to thank the many friends and relatives who played with Drew and Scott and Eric this week when things were so chaotic at our house. The boys loved going to the park, playing Go Fish, seeing sharks at the Tacoma zoo, and exploring the Navy ships at Seafair.

I want to thank Bruce’s friends from the Stadium class of 1979, who are honoring him at their 20-year reunion this weekend. Bruce was very much looking forward to seeing you all. He had tremendous respect and affection for you.

I want to thank Steve Jewels for making Bruce laugh for 23 years, for taking him on many excellent adventures, and for cleaning and praying over his body after he died on the mountain. I can hardly imagine the horror and sorrow that you felt, but I will never forget how you cared for him at the end. It is comforting for me to know that he died in bright sunshine, without suffering, surrounded by the mountains and water that he loved.

I want to thank the 17 search and rescue volunteers from Whatcom and Skagit counties who climbed up the mountain on Wednesday morning and stayed with Bruce’s body for four hours. I want to thank the pilots and crews of the Navy helicopter who then gently lifted his body off of the mountain. I’m very grateful to Ron Peterson of the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office for treating us with such compassion and respect throughout that long day. And I thank John and Sally Lynn who made it possible yesterday for us to see Bruce’s body at peace in their funeral home. Later today a small group of family and friends will disperse his ashes on Puget Sound near the home of our relatives on Bainbridge Island, a place that Bruce held very dear.

I want to thank all of our aunts, uncles and cousins, for the great joy you brought to Bruce from the day he was born, and for the love and admiration that you so often expressed to him. I am very thankful that he had a chance to see many of you last weekend at our reunion.

I want to thank the whole Laurenzo family, who have known Bruce for 20 years, who loved him as their own son and brother, and who have been a great comfort to Lisa and our family this week.

I want to thank my parents, who raised little Boo to be a good boy, a curious boy, a boy who loved to read literature and science, a boy who loved to joke and laugh. They gave him the character to be a loyal friend, a conscientious engineer, and a loving and patient husband and father. He loved you very deeply.

I want to thank Bruce’s wife, Lisa, for being his sweetheart, his best friend, his cooking partner, his loving wife, and the adoring mother of his children. You are his life, his treasure, and his peace. We love you as our daughter and sister.

And finally, I want to thank my three amazing little nephews, Drew, Scotty and Eric, so affectionate and smart and funny and brave. You are your daddy’s great pride and joy. He loves you more than his own life, and he knows that you love him very much. He will be with you as you grow in wisdom and strength, though it pains him deeply that he cannot be as close to you now as he would like.

Let us all resolve today to cherish and comfort one another as long as we live, and to keep Bruce’s memory alive forever. I urge you to write down stories about Bruce, most importantly in order to remind his sons as they grow up just what kind of a man he was. Each of you knows something about Bruce that is unique and valuable.

Bruce, my brother, we will miss you more than we can say. We are so grateful for the life you led, and for the tremendous privilege of sharing your life with you.

Dave Perry’s comments at Bruce’s memorial service in Cincinnati, 14 August 1999:

I want to express my deep appreciation to all of you who made Bruce feel tremendously valued as a friend, neighbor and co-worker, and very much at home in his adopted city of Cincinnati.

I have many good memories of Bruce when we were kids: playing in Little League baseball, going on our first backpacking trips in the Boy Scouts, listening to our Beatles and Monkees records, racing our pedal cars around the basement, and digging our feet into the sand at the ocean beach.

I want to tell a few stories that illustrate Bruce’s mischievous sense of humor. I’m nearly two years older than Bruce, and normally it’s the older sibling’s role to pester his younger sibling. But Bruce loved to tease me when we were kids, all day, every day. He was relentless. I remember many trips in the car with our parents, when Bruce’s pestering led to an imaginary line being drawn between us in the back seat, beyond which he was strictly forbidden to go. Of course, he spent the rest of the trip brazenly moving his hand back and forth across the line, making an annoying buzzing noise to emphasize his infraction.

A friend of his told me a story about his high school days in Tacoma. Somehow Bruce had gotten hold of an army surplus gas mask and an industrial strength fire extinguisher. With his friend driving, Bruce sat holding the extinguisher and wearing the gas mask, with his seat back reclined far enough that he couldn’t be seen. They then drove around town, and whenever they pulled up next to another car at a stop light, Bruce would suddenly rear up in his seat, growl menacingly, and blast the other driver with the extinguisher, which must have been a truly surreal experience.

In college, Bruce and a friend raided one of their dorm-mate’s rooms, removing every last thing in it while he was out. Lisa had a large stuffed polar bear, and one day Bruce hung it out her 9th-floor window on a rope, with a sign pleading, "Save me!" Another time, Bruce managed to roll Lisa up in a big rug, laughing as she struggled vainly to extracate herself.

Bruce always loved to dress up in costumes and entertain people. One of the photos you’ll see at the reception was taken when he was about four or five, wearing sunglasses, a bad wig and a colorful coat, and strumming a ukelele. Much later at a wedding of one of Bruce’s friends, the friend was very nervous waiting for the ceremony to begin, so to break the tension Bruce walked into groomsmen’s room sporting what his friend called "a giant Carmen Miranda earring." Lisa told me that when they were in college, Bruce pilfered a large bra from one of their neighbors and wore it provocatively around the dorm.

Bruce’s sense of gentle mischief remained with him right to the end. At the reception you’ll see photos of him in a dark blue shirt, on the trail and at the summit of Twin Sisters mountain just a few short minutes before he fell. His climbing partner told me that on their ascent, Bruce scrambled up the rocky trail a few yards ahead, and reached the summit first. When his partner got to a point below the summit where he expected to find Bruce, he said, "Okay, Perry, where are ya?" upon which Bruce pelted him in the back with a rock from his higher position, laughing like a man on top of the world.

There are many great stories about Bruce, but each of you knows one that is unique and valuable. I would urge you to write down a story or two about him, and send them to Lisa or me. I’m intending to create a simple web page where we could post all kinds of stories, especially so that as his sons grow they will be able to learn and remember just what kind of a person their father was. At the reception you can pick up a sheet with addresses to send your stories.

My parents would like me to share these brief thoughts with you: "From the day that Bruce was born over 38 years ago, his family thought him to be a fine human being. It gives us great comfort to know that many other people whom Bruce met along his life’s journey also found him to be a fine young man. We grieve for Lisa and our beautiful grandsons. We think that Bruce would want us to be gentle with children, find peace in our hearts, and remember him with a smile."

My mom minored in English Literature in college. One of her favorite poems, which for some reason she’s carried in her purse for the last 12 years, is William Wordsworth’s "Intimations of Immortality," which she’s asked me to read:

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.