This is a hard one for me to write. A lot of my time at Bullard was spent with Brian. He lived closeby, and used to like to come over all the time. He would come over, “Hey, whaddya got to eat?” He had a younger brother (Gary), so did I (Ron and Ted), and I had a sister Dale Ann (now deceased) who laughed a lot with Brian, so we had some things in common. He was a Nixon kid politically, I was not at the time, so we had a lot of interesting political discussions. Brian was smart. Brian was motivated. He was on track to go to medical school. Brian was a lot of fun, though “school” was way, way serious for him, beyond almost anything else. He was a “front row” type of motivated kid, well-liked by all the teachers, and had good grades.
Brian had a big heart. Loved animals and thought he could calm any of them down, no matter how rough. We warned him about Jinxie, but I still have a great photo of Brian screaming, with Jinxie’s jaws and claws wrapped around his fingers. To which he laughed, of course. He always wanted to try to do the right thing, even though he could appreciate the humor of any particular situation. He was more exciting to be around than his serious look and persona would otherwise commonly indicate.
To give you an idea of the type of guy he was, because his little brother was playing soccer, he decided to become a referee after seeing a number of bad calls, and wanting to do something about it. He had to go to school for it, take a test (even though he had never played before), and get out there, doing hour after hour, game after game, meeting elder after elder. At some point early on, the soccer league called me (I was a coach) and said hey can you make sure Brian comes to the big downtown soccer banquet. It turned out, he was so devoted, had done so well and was so well-respected by the coaches, league officials and players, that they were going to give him the Klemens Ibach Best Referee Award. That’s the way Brian was, could do anything really that he tried.
We played countless hours of ping-pong out in the backyard, close games every one, mainly though to talk about Bullard girls, Bullard classes, Bullard girls, teacher stuff, and Bullard girls. We found out we pretty much liked all the same ones. We were competitive in all things. Not sure we ever followed up with the many bad ideas we had to try to get some cute girl to give us any kind of wink. We laughed at each other’s goofs, but with a solid bond of friendship and respect.
However, I can tell you right now, NOBODY could do a funny, weird, strange, arms and legs flailing/twisting belly-flop dive, like HE could. He made people laugh uproariously. My sister said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. And the good part was, no two of those things were ever the same.
We did a lot of fun things, too numerous to mention, but sure had some good, good times. [Ask me, if you have the time, like about the machete incident, or the “This tastes like Ragu sauce” debacle, for example.] Years later we would traverse where we could, again “looking for girls”, trying to see who could get the best reaction, basically. Anyway, it was fun as could be. I worked at a radio station in Hanford, where he came down a few times for the fun, and we got embroiled in some, “No way anybody will ever believe THIS”-type of encounters.
He loved music and was an accomplished pianist, and enjoyed a wide variety of ragtime tunes. He was so good at those he made them sound like there were three guys playing at once. I remember one time we were out in Clovis (chasing a girl) and when Brian was tickling the ivories (and believe me, he was good at that), a bewildered elderly gentleman -looking confused- rushed out with troubled look of surprise on his face (turned out it was the young woman’s grandfather), yelling, “What’s going on!?! It sounds like Alexander’s Ragtime Band in here!!” We laughed many times about this well-orchestrated attempt-to-impress, gone badly haywire. (Even to this day members of my family will come out when things are loud and say, “Can’t you be quiet?! It sounds like Alexander’s Ragtime Band in here!”)
Brian did well in school after coming home from Davis somewhat quickly. He eventually tried a stint in podiatry school, but it was not his love. He opened a coin shop for awhile, and helped a lot of people working in the library. He talked often of wanting to find a cure for cancer. He was good-hearted, sincere, and had a big heart for people and family. At some point he was admitted to Stanford to go study molecular biology and ended up there pursuing his masters.
Although his illness would not allow him to pursue all he could have accomplished in life, before he got sick he was the best friend really that anybody could have, and always gave all he could to try to help others, and do the right thing. Still his memories are golden in my family as we tell story after story about how great he was, how funny he was, how great his horribly-bad dives were, but also what a loss it is to not have our friend Brian around anymore. Lentell was just an awesome guy.
James Langford
This is a hard one for me to write. A lot of my time at Bullard was spent with Brian. He lived closeby, and used to like to come over all the time. He would come over, “Hey, whaddya got to eat?” He had a younger brother (Gary), so did I (Ron and Ted), and I had a sister Dale Ann (now deceased) who laughed a lot with Brian, so we had some things in common. He was a Nixon kid politically, I was not at the time, so we had a lot of interesting political discussions. Brian was smart. Brian was motivated. He was on track to go to medical school. Brian was a lot of fun, though “school” was way, way serious for him, beyond almost anything else. He was a “front row” type of motivated kid, well-liked by all the teachers, and had good grades.
Brian had a big heart. Loved animals and thought he could calm any of them down, no matter how rough. We warned him about Jinxie, but I still have a great photo of Brian screaming, with Jinxie’s jaws and claws wrapped around his fingers. To which he laughed, of course. He always wanted to try to do the right thing, even though he could appreciate the humor of any particular situation. He was more exciting to be around than his serious look and persona would otherwise commonly indicate.
To give you an idea of the type of guy he was, because his little brother was playing soccer, he decided to become a referee after seeing a number of bad calls, and wanting to do something about it. He had to go to school for it, take a test (even though he had never played before), and get out there, doing hour after hour, game after game, meeting elder after elder. At some point early on, the soccer league called me (I was a coach) and said hey can you make sure Brian comes to the big downtown soccer banquet. It turned out, he was so devoted, had done so well and was so well-respected by the coaches, league officials and players, that they were going to give him the Klemens Ibach Best Referee Award. That’s the way Brian was, could do anything really that he tried.
We played countless hours of ping-pong out in the backyard, close games every one, mainly though to talk about Bullard girls, Bullard classes, Bullard girls, teacher stuff, and Bullard girls. We found out we pretty much liked all the same ones. We were competitive in all things. Not sure we ever followed up with the many bad ideas we had to try to get some cute girl to give us any kind of wink. We laughed at each other’s goofs, but with a solid bond of friendship and respect.
However, I can tell you right now, NOBODY could do a funny, weird, strange, arms and legs flailing/twisting belly-flop dive, like HE could. He made people laugh uproariously. My sister said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. And the good part was, no two of those things were ever the same.
We did a lot of fun things, too numerous to mention, but sure had some good, good times. [Ask me, if you have the time, like about the machete incident, or the “This tastes like Ragu sauce” debacle, for example.] Years later we would traverse where we could, again “looking for girls”, trying to see who could get the best reaction, basically. Anyway, it was fun as could be. I worked at a radio station in Hanford, where he came down a few times for the fun, and we got embroiled in some, “No way anybody will ever believe THIS”-type of encounters.
He loved music and was an accomplished pianist, and enjoyed a wide variety of ragtime tunes. He was so good at those he made them sound like there were three guys playing at once. I remember one time we were out in Clovis (chasing a girl) and when Brian was tickling the ivories (and believe me, he was good at that), a bewildered elderly gentleman -looking confused- rushed out with troubled look of surprise on his face (turned out it was the young woman’s grandfather), yelling, “What’s going on!?! It sounds like Alexander’s Ragtime Band in here!!” We laughed many times about this well-orchestrated attempt-to-impress, gone badly haywire. (Even to this day members of my family will come out when things are loud and say, “Can’t you be quiet?! It sounds like Alexander’s Ragtime Band in here!”)
Brian did well in school after coming home from Davis somewhat quickly. He eventually tried a stint in podiatry school, but it was not his love. He opened a coin shop for awhile, and helped a lot of people working in the library. He talked often of wanting to find a cure for cancer. He was good-hearted, sincere, and had a big heart for people and family. At some point he was admitted to Stanford to go study molecular biology and ended up there pursuing his masters.
Although his illness would not allow him to pursue all he could have accomplished in life, before he got sick he was the best friend really that anybody could have, and always gave all he could to try to help others, and do the right thing. Still his memories are golden in my family as we tell story after story about how great he was, how funny he was, how great his horribly-bad dives were, but also what a loss it is to not have our friend Brian around anymore. Lentell was just an awesome guy.