By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JUNE 21, 2019 | Another close friend of mine has died, Steve Rausch, 67, of Peachtree Corners. Services for him were Monday at Perimeter Church.
Steve was also a close critic. We enjoyed each other’s company principally through our different philosophies. Yet we both reveled in talking the issues, and recognized that we agreed that we disagreed. There was no acrimony there, just straight-forward differences.
We conversed over the phone, through emails, face-to-face over meals, and every time we finished, we were both content with one another. Our talks wandered: to his previous work in the floor covering and tile businesses; to his love of flying; about his lake house on Lake Hartwell; about how we grew up; and often about politics. Both of us did a poor job of convincing the other.
My first contact with Steve was when buying parquet tile floors for our den. That was back in my newspaper days, and he was an advertiser. Years later the friendship continued over idea lines.
Rausch
Four days before Steve’s unexpected death, he was in my office, us going at it as usual. Actually, we were more in sync on that visit, talking about a flying buddy of his. It was that day I just learned that Steve, growing up in Dayton, Ohio, had carried, like I did, a paper route.
“You ought to write about paper routes for kids, which we don’t have much today,” Steve said. What has happened is that newspapers stopped relying on high school kids to throw a paper route, since neighborhoods changed with the growing suburban population, and houses were on bigger lots and farther from each other. The houses were too far apart and the routes too long to use kids on bicycles. So the routes went to kids over 16, or grown-ups, who had automobiles, and could cover the longer routes. Instead of a high schooler with 100 customers, these new routes had maybe 300-400 customers. It was more of an additional job for adults, instead of a part-time income for kids.
Steve’s route in Dayton included a business area. He went to the newspaper first and picked up part of his newspapers. “I would then go to the nearby businesses block each morning, and in those days, virtually everyone took the paper,” he told me. “Then I got another load of papers in my bicycle with the front-end basket and completed my route though my neighborhood.”
My paper route was near my home in Macon. I picked up my papers three blocks away at a service station, and could throw my route in about 40 minutes. Several of us carriers often ended up the first customers about 6 a.m. at a local bakery, where fresh, hot doughnuts were ready for us. That may be why I don’t particularly enjoy doughnuts today, since early on we ate so many back then.
But back to Steve. He once wrote to me: “The world isn’t being destroyed by Democrats or Republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group believing they’re truly better people than the others who think differently. Stop this by respecting other opinions even if you disagree. Just politely disagree and then move on.”
Steve leaves his wife of 44 years, Christy; three children, Tim, Jill and Jen, and six grandchildren.
Steven William Rausch, 1951-2019: may you rest in peace
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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