My friend Rick Hendrickson passed away about fifteen years ago. In just a few minutes from now, you will love him and cherish his memory as much as I do. But first…a little introduction.

My first impression of Richard Hendrickson was “eternal hippie”. He didn’t look or dress the part of a professional animal welfare advocate, which was more or less an unstated requirement in our organization. I was working as a Field Services Representative with the Animal Protection Institute in Sacramento California at the time. Rick wanted to become a Humane Officer with API’s Humane Educator’s Council, where I also served as Executive Director.

By the time I met Rick, he already had a well-defined reputation in Yuba County as being “a pain in the ass” according to Animal Control. He didn’t like the way Animal Control was caring for the animals and he wasn’t hesitant to let them know.  (When I got a look at the facility, I could see why. We changed that.)

It didn’t take long for us to reach the conclusion that Rick was “just what the doctor ordered,” hippie or no. He became a Humane Officer with HEC. It was the best addition we made to our all-volunteer humane education force. (HEC officers were charged with responding to reports of animal misuse, abuse or deprivation, using education and mutual agreement whenever possible; only as a last resort would charges be brought, since most instances of animal misery are caused by ignorance, not depravity.)

Rick was a gung-ho kind of guy. A one point, he wanted me, in my capacity as Executive Director of HEC, to let him go undercover to investigate and bring Yuba County dogfight and cockfight aficionados to justice.

As a humane education group, I didn’t think undercover investigations were within our purview. Undertaking a sting operation would be fraught with personal peril.

Unlike police departments, HEC officers didn’t have access to criminal records—and generally speaking, wherever there is dog and cock-fighting there are usually guns and prostitution, too. So I thought Rick was asking me to bite off more than we could chew as a humane education organization—and I was afraid that if he was found out, the perpetrators would quickly and without remorse kill him.  (“Shoot, shovel and shut up.”)

Rick said he was willing to take that risk. I told him, “I’m not. You’re more valuable to animals—and to your family, and to us—alive than dead. Buddy, I need you to live long and prosper!”

He said, “I could do it. I look just like them. They would never suspect.”

I said, “No, Rick. No.” He was deeply disappointed in my decision.

He tried to get the Humane Society of the US to approve his plan. They, too, declined.

He was one determined dude.

From 1981 to 1985 (and perhaps longer; I left in 1985 to return to my point of origin, the Pacific Northwest), Rick Hendrickson served in every animal-related capacity we asked of him—and he always wanted to do more. Animal welfare was his driving passion. Fortunately, his wife and children all shared his passion to protect and serve animals.

We stayed in touch after I left API. We reconnected at times at a friend’s home and at the 1996 Sacramento Star Trek convention. (In fact, the Hendrickson’s paid my airfare from and back to Seattle because the convention owners thought I was still a Sacramento local when they invited me to appear there and I said yes before I realized that they didn’t have airfare in their budget to fly me in, nor did I! That’s how badly the Hendrickson’s wanted to see me again…and I stayed at Nancy Graf’s home while in SAC because the convention didn’t pay me a dime to talk about my friend DeForest Kelley.) (They paid my way and put me up in a hotel a year later in Las Vegas after they saw how well I was received in Sacramento.)

By this time I knew all about the 1986 major flooding that had occurred in Yuba County, California where the Hendrickson’s lived. They’d told me the tale.

During the flooding, Rick and his wife Barbara either owned or rented a motor boat and turned out to help rescue as many of the afflicted animals as possible—domestic, tame and wild—whose lives hung in the balance.

Rick reported, “There were literally cows, calves and horses stranded in trees, and coyotes, and snakes, too—what must have seemed to them to be miles from land. They couldn’t cross the water themselves. We had to do something!”

And so they did. For eighteen hours straight, they motored out to the animals and either pulled them aboard (if they were small enough) or helped “escort” them to shore using ropes and slings.

Concerned as much for the Hendrickson’s safety as I was for the animals they rescued, I asked if any of the animals threatened to bite them.

“Not one.

“Cats, cows, coyotes or snakes? None?”

Not one. They all understood we were there to help them. They knew.”

Rick and Barbara knew how to communicate their love to animals they had never met before that terrible flood. I guess that’s what they communicated to me, too, and why it was so easy to say yes to Rick—on everything other than undercover work.

Losing him was one of the saddest things ever to befall me. But I know he’s across Rainbow Bridge gamboling with critters, so he’s the lucky one. The rest of us have to muddle through ‘til we graduate, too.

We love and miss you, Rick!

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