SLO County ‘Renaissance man’ honored with memorial bench at elephant seal rookery
%20sent.jpg "Richard Tanner, late husband of Cambrian columnist Kathe Tanner, was honored with a memorial bench at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery north of San Simeon.")
If life was fair, we’d all be cared for and about all the time. That’s especially true when you’re grief-stricken about the loss of a loved one.
Some of us are truly blessed to receive that love and compassion from family members, friends and associates.
When that support comes from people you don’t know at all, it can be so heartwarming and reassuring.
My family has finally finished an emotion-fraught quest to install a memorial bench at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery north of San Simeon.
The help and thoughtfulness we received throughout the past year and a half has left us feeling comforted, protected and very thankful.
Columnist looks for way to honor late husband
Nearly 19 months ago, news spread throughout Cambria and the rest of San Luis Obispo County about my husband’s death. The response from so many of you was mind-blowing.
There was no way I could answer every card and call, giving each one a proper thank you. So, I had to resort to using my usual means: The Tribune, The Cambrian and social media.
Richard had been very firm that he didn’t want us to do a funeral or memorial service.
He knew those rituals are essential for some people, many of them deeply religious. But for a variety of reasons, he’d drifted away from that part of his upbringing in a large family in Utah.
With or without those convictions, large events wrapped around life-changing circumstances — such as weddings, graduations and funerals — can be emotionally exhausting and draining.
Our years of catering and providing cakes for big events also proved to us that the one thing that you really need and want to have — quality time with people who are important to you — almost never happens because you’re surrounded by 200 or 300 of your nearest and dearest.
There’s simply not enough time or personal bandwidth to go around.
A few days after Richard died, Tribune editor Joe Tarica commented on the sheer volume of responses we’d gotten.
He said, “You really should give people some way to honor him, to show how much Richard meant to them.”
Designating a nonprofit organization to which people could donate in Richard’s name seemed the best way to go, but which one?
Son Brian pegged it immediately. “Duh, Mom!” he said. “It has to be Friends of the Elephant Seal.”
He was right. His dad had loved his time as a member of the second class of docents for the San Luis Obispo County nonprofit group, and had many wonderful memories of his time on the bluff.
So, I posed the idea on Facebook.
Within a few minutes, I got a message from dear friend Toni (Booth) Barnett of San Miguel, who was one of my former editors at the Cambrian.
She said rather firmly that donations were grand, and she’d help me accomplish that if it was truly what we wanted, but what we really should do was put a Richard Tanner memorial bench somewhere.
The obvious place for the bench was at the elephant seal rookery viewing area south of Piedras Blancas, where hundreds of thousands of people stop every year to see elephant seals.
I contacted Friends of the Elephant Seal. Toni began organizing things and donations started coming in.
Amazingly, within a month, people had given more than enough for Richard’s bench, with a balance that would stay with the nonprofit to help sustain and promote the program he loved.
First, however, we had to get permission to put the bench at the beach.
The rookery site is California State Parks property, so I contacted the superintendent of the San Luis Obispo Coast District and asked for help.
It took time, but Dan Falat, park maintenance chief Blake Thorin, Friends of the Elephant Seal officials and others made possible what had seemed highly unlikely.
Memorial bench dedicated at SLO County elephant seal rookery
All that culminated on July 11. Nine of us gathered to watch as Evan Feeney, a State Parks maintenance chap, mounted two memorial plaques on Richard’s bench.
Evan was so kind and personable while also being quite funny and efficient that he took a lot of the sting out of what could have been a painfully emotional revisiting of our shared loss.
Unlike the two ocean-facing benches that were there already in the quad between the parking area and the boardwalk, Richard’s bench is close to and faces the south fence.
We wanted all people, but especially anybody with physical constraints, to be able to sit, watch and marvel at the life cycles of the mammoth marine mammals — from snoozing to breeding and birthing.
One of the plaques on the bench reads as follows: “RICHARD H. TANNER, 1925-2020. Renaissance man, loving raconteur. Elephant seal docent, WWII veteran. Talented master of many occupations whose charm & radiant smile lit up any room. Forever loved, forever missed.”
The other says, “RICHARD TANNER MEMORIAL BENCH — PLEASE RESERVE THIS BENCH for those whose physical conditions make it difficult for them to walk on and enjoy the boardwalk. THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFULNESS.”
I suspect my late husband would be embarrassed by all the fuss.
I also truly believe that, deep down, he’d have been immensely pleased by the bench, its installation and dedication and the intent of all who honored him.
I know he’d love and appreciate the second plaque, hoping that people will honor the request.
