This page was created in memory of Ryan David Kruse aka Wookie.
I first met Ryan around the end of Dec. 2004. I was working at a local Goodwill thrift store as a processor. I never really got to know him all that well, as he was at the end of his service there when I started. He was always goofing off when he should have been working, but when you are there for the reason he was, you tend not to care much and not a lot of people tend to notice. That man was forever seeing something interesting and off the wall, saying how badass it was, and then hiding it in hopes to take it home later. I don't know how much free stuff he took home, because I really ignored that. The way I saw it, if it wasn't sorted and priced, then it was free for the taking. It was The most horrible job to ever have to get paid for. I hated every minute of it. The only fun part about the job was when they would place a few of us on trash duty. Ryan would always want to be in charge of taking the gaylord back to the trash compactor. We'd start with the clothing and throw it down, then we'd get to the fun part. We would find anything breakable, stand back and throw it as hard as we could. Nothing beats being able to take all your frustrations out at work. The end of my first week there Ryan stopped coming. I asked one of the others what happened to him and they said his service was over. I was almost kind of sad, and instantly the job got real tedious and boring. Two days later I quit. Why stay somewhere if you aren't happy?
I didn't see Ryan again until about 8 months later. I had just moved in with the parentals and I was depressed all the time. For about 3 wks I didn't go anywhere, and for that matter I hardly ever left my basement room unless I absolutely had to. Finally, my sister decided it was time for me to get out and meet people. She said she had a couple of friends who were close to my age that she wanted to introduce me too. Of course, once the parentals agreed to allow me to go, we didn't tell them the whole truth about what our plans were. We went and picked up a couple of her friends in Gladstone, then we headed out to someone's apartment. There were a bunch of people there, including the first guy my sister wanted me to meet. Before we went inside she told me that if I wasn't attracted to him it wouldn't hurt her feelings at all, because she had someone else in mind for me. It turned out this guy was my age, and my sister had messed around with him in the past. Lucky for me that she had someone else in mind because I wasn't remotely attracted to him at all. Things he talked about were just kind of scary. After a couple of hours of hanging out over there he said we were going to hang out with his friend Wookie. My sister had told me that was the one she really had in mind for me. I told her that I didn't want to be set up with anyone. All she said was "trust me". All the way to his house I couldn't get an image out of my mind of what he could possibly look like with a name like that. I just really wasn't all about the trusting, and this one she wasn't interested in, nor had she had any relations with , as he wasn't her type. Scott did all the introductions when we got there. Ryan came over to me and took my hand and said it was a pleasure to meet me, as he's heard a lot about me. I just looked at my sister with this look of "what have you told him?" He instantly knew what I was thinking and said that it was all good. After that I said "It's a pleasure to meet you too Wookie". He stopped and got a faint smile and said "No, please, call me Ryan". The room fell with an erie silence. I still to this day don't understand why.
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