Richard Slayton

Today marks one year since my dear friend has left this earth. 

 Richard and I met on" Little Miss Venice". This was a boat the show would lease and have a party for the first of mays to be welcomed. It was on this night I first met Richard. 

 I was talking to him about some one who was going to give me a ride to the train. He warned me about about this guy and said not to go. So I didn't. Sure enough he was right. This person ended up hitting the Venice bridge and injuring everyone in the car. 

 From that day on we became inseparable friends. We even shared the same birthday. This seemed to make our friendship even more special. 

Whether driving overland together or  staying with him in his trailer we always had fun. Richard was born on the show and went from concession vendor to concession manager. He always dreamed of  being manager on the Red and it always seemed to elude him. Finally he was able to achieve that dream. He called me personally to let me know how happy he was. This was a true friend.

 I want to share one story I'll never forget. We were in Miami in 1977. It was a cold day and the train was far away so I was staying in his  trailer on the lot. In fact it actually snowed. He didn't have any propane so the trailer was freezing . Because of the busy schedule we didn't have time to get any propane. 

 We noticed there was a fly on the curtain that hadn't moved in 2 days. Finally we were able to get some propane and warm up the trailer. We watched the fly and noticed it started to move slowly and stretch its wings. Slowly it twitched until it got warmed up. At first it flew slowly around until it got going.  We let him warm up, opened the door and our friendly fly was gone.......      - Mitch -