August 23, 2000

A few memories of bars, keys, and broom closets

It's been almost a quarter century since I last heard Ralph Barkey's cheerful whistle as he came in the door of the Tribune. That whistle was his trademark. So was his Mnemonic description of his name: "Like a bar with a key, spelled the same way."

Ralph was the ad director. Most of my first decade with the Tribune he was my immediate boss. He was, first of all, a good friend.

Most people who operated a Pacifica business in the sixties or the early seventies, or had business before the North Coast County Water board, or were involved in the incorporation of Pacifica, or attended the Pacifica Peso auction got to know RB. It was a rare person who didn't like him. Ralph didn't preach positive thinking. He practiced it, every day. He was always cheerful. His smile never left him. He was jaunty even when everyone knew he'd been bouncing in and out of Kaiser emergency like a tennis ball. He wasn't a pollyanna. He'd make wry jokes about his health. He knew. He just wasn't going to let himself, or anyone else, be down.

Even a plastic heart valve couldn't slow him down much. I noticed he didn't whistle as frequently when he came in the door. But even drawn and tired, he smiled. He was always easy to work with.

People trusted Ralph. When his opponent in a North Coast County Water District election needed an ad in the Tribune, he came to Ralph. Ralph conscientiously helped him put together an ad as good or better than he would have created for his own campaign for the same office. No one expected any less of Ralph. He always did his best for his customers. He grew up in New York. During the Golden Age of radio, he was an NBC page. As Ralph told it, one network's VP was inordinately proud of his first venture into carpentry, a broom closet.

This nettled world-famous radio comedian Fred Allen, a man with a dry and barbed wit who hated network vice-presidents on principle. This was in the days when radio shows were broadcast live to audiences comparable in size to any TV audience today. Allen made a caustic on-air reference to the "vice-president in charge of broom closets."

The VP, in the control room, was furious. "Insubordination", he screamed. He ordered the show off the air "Now!" When the network president, an Allen fan, called to ask the problem, Ralph handed the phone to the VP, who turned white as a sheet as he was terminated on the spot.

Ralph died too young. At 52 he was vitally interested in his family, his adopted home town, "his" water district. He was still concerned for the merchants who'd benefited from his ad expertise for 15 years. I can only be grateful the surgeons kept him alive as long as they did. We need all the RBs we can get.

Ralph was an artist. He designed the city seal. It's based on the head of Ralph Stackpole's 80 foot tall theme statue, Pacifica, at the San Francisco International Exposition of 1939-40. Every city letterhead carries the seal. Before someone was foolish enough to substitute a generic decal, the distinctive art was also prominently featured on every Pacifica police car's side panel. That seal is a memorial to a man with a never-say-die smile, a cheerful whistle, and a "bar with a key, spelled the same way."

Some recent Reactor columns may be found at Paul Azevedo's website, http://www.thereactor.net/ Reach him by e-mail at reactor@wenet.net