Posted by Staff Reports | Aug 22, 2022 | Floyd Obituaries | 0 |
Ralph Wendall Beck has left the building.
On Saturday, July 30, 2022, he clocked out, cashed in his chips, exited stage left, slipped out the back Jack, made like a tree and got out of here, went to get a pack of cigarettes, and gone to attend The Great Gig in The Sky. And I guess that we’re all thinking he did it to avoid watching anyone other than Coach K on the sidelines of a Duke basketball game.
To be honest, we thought Wendall couldn’t die. Goodness knows, the Grim Reaper tried. He has been dicing with death for his entire life, but always ended up peeling off for a victory lap in one of his sports cars. The screwdriver up the nose couldn’t kill Wendall. Neither could the drill in the arm, the taxidermy moose head, the bowl of Christmas Eve spaghetti, the lighter and the can of hairspray, the fall through the ceiling, the golf ball to the head, twelve economic recessions, multiple bankruptcies, Little League coaching, brake fluid from his Triumph TR6, or partying with Ronnie Hammond, the former lead singer for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, on Lake Tobesofkee.
Wendall outlived almost everything including his parents, Ralph Samuel Beck and Edna Thurston Beck, his brothers Ralph Samuel Beck, Jr. and Joseph Donald “Tony” Beck, his sisters, Wanda Delores Beck Asmus and Judy Patricia Beck, his nephew Paul Desmond “Desi” Beck, and his beloved duck coffee mug. He is only survived by his wife Barbara Krasnicki Beck, his son Jason, his daughter-in-law Jennifer, his brother Allen Sherwood Beck, and over 6 hours of hummingbird footage which he captured on a Panasonic Omnimovie PV-610 VHS camcorder.
Wendall worked for The Heat & Frost Insulators Local Union #48 in Atlanta. An occupation that took him on extraordinary, unprintable adventures across the United States with Gene Gene the insulating machine, Jimmy Majors, Max Ennis, Rutroe, Lloyd Baker, and the Bond Brothers. Later, he was elected to the Local Union #48 Executive Board before retiring to invent an algorithm that failed to reverse engineer the drawing pattern of winning lottery numbers.
Wendall changed sports cars like most people change their underwear. He played basketball like a bandit and played tennis like a pro, winning over 30 USTA tennis trophies in the 1980’s while smoking a cigarette. A record he still holds today. His legendary battle with the video game Raiders of the Lost Ark on the Atari 2600 lives in the folklore of Macon, Georgia to this very day. Despite being a game with no pause button that required two controllers, he eventually beat the game after years of power outages and the epic struggles of his wife Barbara on the second controller. His war cry “Put it on the whip!” as far as we know, is still hovering in space over Fincher’s Barbecue.
Wendall was an expert in life hacks long before the internet made it popular. He worked with duct tape and PVC the way Michelangelo worked with oil and marble. It was his true medium. A master. He was one of the most feared mosquito fighters in the Southeast. He reached the zenith of his power when he obtained his Excalibur! The electric flyswatter racket.
Over the years, when Wendall wasn’t setting his long hair on fire in the carport, he became quite the connoisseur of the television sitcom Two and a Half Men. He continually enjoyed the show’s endless loop of reruns while eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes with an additional teaspoon of sugar. The perfect additive to anything Charlie Sheen.
Wendall answered his phone with the greeting “Yo! MTV Raps” and concluded each call with “Hasta la vista”. A talented storyteller capable of weaving a tapestry of one ripping good yarn after another, his recounting of fantastical anecdotes such as “The Night Everyone He Knew Vanished”, “Jimmy Major’s Bathroom Situation In New York”, “The Time He Stole His Brother Sherwood’s Drivers License”, and “The Cracker Barrel Look” blew every streaming service out of the water.
Wendall was a good man and always a good judge of character. He once befriended and bartered a co-worker named Gerald into accompanying his son to his first Van Halen concert. Years later, when we found out that Gerald was actually wanted by the FBI and arrested for stealing the identity of a deceased insulator, Wendall stood by his decision saying ‘Who better to chaperone my son safely at a rowdy Van Halen concert than a man who had been dodging the FBI for over a decade?’
There will be a memorial on his birthday Saturday, November 12, 2022 which may seem late but Wendall was never punctual a day in his life. Until that time, his family will be sorting through the only things his estate left behind like we are on some sort of prank HGTV program. Closets full of unopened, unused clothes he received as birthday or Christmas presents and a multiplicity of other random items that would prove useful in the event of a zombie apocalypse. To have the last laugh at debt collectors, Wendall ensured there was no inheritance but we would give it all back jack to do it again anyway.
We’ll see you later, Dad. We loved you and the ride.
RIP Ralph Wendall Beck 12 NOV 1948 – 30 JAN 2022
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, North Chapel, makes this announcement for the family.
510 Avenue A Rome, GA 30165 Email: [email protected] Phone: (706) 234-0081
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