![\"\"](\"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Ratchford.jpg\")
<\/a>Ron Ratchford relaxes on bench outside Town Hall in San Anselmo. Photo by Woody Weingarten<\/p><\/div>\n
If you believe my wife, Ron Ratchford\u2019s middle name should be \u201cRaconteur.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or \u201cBoulevardier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or, if all else fails, \u201cBon Vivant.\u201d<\/p>\n
My, my, she certainly has a penchant for French appellations, doesn\u2019t she?<\/p>\n
Yet each works.<\/p>\n
A raconteur skillfully tells the best stories and anecdotes, sometimes dramatic, other times witty.<\/p>\n
Ron\u2019s that, for sure.For two hours one weekday, he regales me on a favorite bench in front of San Anselmo\u2019s Town Hall (another is nearby on the edge of the new Imagination Park) \u2014 with stories purloined from his past.<\/p>\n
A boulevardier is a sophisticated, worldly, socially active \u201cman-about-town.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I spot Ron strolling through a recent art and wine festival, he pauses to chat about what he encountered.<\/p>\n
A boulevardier? Surely.<\/p>\n
A bon vivant is somebody with cultivated, refined and convivial tastes.<\/p>\n
Ron\u2019s that, too, though I can\u2019t swear to his palate for fine wine or gourmet food. And as far as conformity goes, I know he eschews wristwatch, cell phone and landline.<\/p>\n
All the years he worked, \u201cusually just to pay the rent,\u201d he felt intruded upon, controlled by such gadgets.<\/p>\n
He was a teacher in Appalachia, a buyer for a microbiology company, a social worker, a cook, a mailroom clerk, a waiter and a designer-stitcher for an art group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to be a scheduler, overburdened by the limits of time,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n
So, after his last job, he tossed his wristwatch into the ocean.<\/p>\n
He feels freer without the devices.<\/p>\n
The San Anselmo renter has succumbed to the computer age, however, and is having a love affair with his machine despite it weaning him from legal pad and pen.<\/p>\n
On this particular day he wears chinos, a straw hat, sandals, gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a T-shirt featuring his own pattern (\u201cMost of my designs,\u201d he tells me puckishly, \u201cstart with stains. I think this one was chocolate\u201d).<\/p>\n
He\u2019s obviously more interested in being comfy than being Beau Brummell.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s adamant about nixing fixing a chipped tooth that\u2019s been conspicuous for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also into multi-tasking, steadily knitting (a top pastime) while fielding my questions.<\/p>\n
The seventysomething bachelor with a white van dyke dating to the 1960s chuckles a lot. My stories amuse him. So do his.<\/p>\n
He playfully skips from this topic to that. \u201cI\u2019m never sequential,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
One second he talks about toiling as a child-caddy on a golf course and gardener in a cemetery, the next he tells me of Army duty, the moment after that he jabbers about being a financial theatrical consultant.<\/p>\n
As befitting a retired gentleman, he\u2019s volunteered with Marin Literacy, teaching adults how to speak and write English.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s tutored at the local library for years \u2014 unexpectedly, perhaps, in \u201cIntroduction to Computers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Admittedly, Ron doesn\u2019t charm everyone. Several in the library\u2019s book-reading group that he attended for years claim \u2014 to his face \u2014 he hijacked many of the monthly discussions, leaving insufficient time for others.<\/p>\n
A voracious reader, he countered that too many believe they, and only they, have the right interpretation\u201d of whatever book is being read.<\/p>\n
His favorite activities also include leisure with \u201ccoffee-shop friends and old friends from the old days, by email mostly\u201d \u2014 and writing at home.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been working for years on his book, \u201chistorical fiction, character-driven rather than plot-driven social criticism about passing the status quo from one generation to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also keeps a journal\/blog consisting of \u201cexpanded ideas,\u201d such as musicals based on Flash Gordon or Anne Frank.<\/p>\n
Details are, for the most part, secret.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people find out I write,\u201d he says, \u201cthey start giving me potential plots, plots that usually reveal something about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron also walks a lot, sometimes twice daily, from downtown to the Seminary and back, and occasionally to Fairfax or San Rafael. He prefers shoe-leather to cars, which \u201cdamage the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s opinionated on everything except TV shows (he doesn\u2019t own a set).<\/p>\n
To wit: \u201cThere are a lot of people in this area who could be in a book, people who went through the \u20186os but are now the soberest people in town.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, \u201cwe have a glut of people here who substitute a nanny for themselves. That\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron Raconteur Bon Vivant Boulevardier Ratchford \u2014owl- and bird-lover, San Anselmo ambassador without portfolio.<\/p>\n
I relish running into this man for all seasons and all seasonings and what my grandmother would have called his \u201cgift of gab.\u201d<\/p>\n
To turn an infamous Sally Field quote on its head, I like him, I really like him.<\/p>\n
Chipped tooth and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you believe my wife, Ron Ratchford\u2019s middle name should be \u201cRaconteur.\u201d Or \u201cBoulevardier.\u201d Or, if all else fails, \u201cBon Vivant.\u201d My, my, she certainly has a penchant for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"