Walla Walla, WA - On October 12 at 10:13 PM in the half-light of a waning gibbous moon, as the wild beasts of the desert met with the jackals, and the satyr cried to his fellow, and Lilith the night-monster settled to find for herself a place to rest, sages standing in God's holy fire gathered Rick Bradstreet into the artifice of eternity.

Richard Dean Bradstreet greeted his parents Dean and Pearl with a metaphoric wrench in his tiny hand on August 1, 1959 as the city of Walla Walla, Washington hummed in the background. By the time Rick graduated from Walla Walla High School he had already disassembled an old pickup and was eyeing the family car. Rick's real education came with working alongside his dad and his older brother Dennis. Rick was in his element when working on cars and trucks, tearing them down and rebuilding them with a Rick twist -- he never stopped thinking about how to "do it better." Rick was a wealth of knowledge about how to make things work coupled with the fortitude to do something even if it was wrong because the journey is learning and the learning doesn't stop.

In a poetic elegy Rick's nephew Mark Sluder memorializes the Rick that those who loved, knew.

...my uncle passed, miss him. Those that knew him know how much of a good person he was. A library of wisdom and knowledge. Someone who would go out of their way to help out. He spent the last few years taking care of grandma and keeping her company, until it wasn't possible anymore for him. Every last bit of strength. I spent my whole life looking up to him, and still wish I could be at least half the man he was...I learned a lot about cars from him. Got schooled playing pool with him. Seen how well he trained his dogs...Sheila, Mocha, Kipper. He built his wheeling trucks from ground up...and usually had his latest brainstorm incorporated into those builds. Definitely a big hole in my life, RIP Rick.

Rick spent the final seven weeks of his life in the home of, and under the loving care of his sister DeAnn and her husband Steve Kelty. From his bed he could witness the sun rise in the east and set in the west. Rick was the blessèd man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Rick personified the idiom "honest as the day is long."

Richard Dean was preceded in death by his father Dean Bradstreet and his nephew BoDean Bradstreet. Rick is survived by his 98 year old mother Pearl Louise Bradstreet, his brother Dennis Bradstreet, sister Sue Baker and brother-in-law Nick, sister DeAnn Kelty and brother-in-law Steve, niece Kimberly Bakersmith and her husband Joshua and their daughter Sula, niece Emily Baker and her husband Anthony King and their daughter Pepper, niece Kim Moore and her husband Scott and their daughter Jena and son Tyler, nephew Kasey Kelty and his son Brandon, nephew Mark Sluder and his wife Angela and their son Cadence and daughter Vanna, nephew Rob Bradstreet and his wife Jenni and their daughter Aurelia Pearl, and nephew BoDean Bradstreet's wife Lindsey and their daughter Riley.

And so, before Aurora left her saffron bed; her beams of early light the heavens to o'erspread Rick shuffled off his mortal coil and departed for that undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns; to die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream. Rick will ever be at Innisfree. And he shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow...there midnight's all a glimmer and noon a purple glow and evening full of linnet's wings and the lake waters lapping with low sounds by the shore.

"See you farther up the creek."