JEREMY JOJOLA

When I was a young, impressionable college kid, Ricardo was a deeply positive influence on my life and an absolutely terrible role model, which made him fun to be around. 

He’d probably get a kick out of this posting about him. As he would read it, he’d likely get a little offended and hurt and then maybe find it funny after a while. Maybe he’d light up a cigarette and give a hilarious opinion about the art of writing about the deceased. 

This is not an obituary but it is my way of saying goodbye to a deeply complex man who was well liked and sometimes, maybe very often, disliked.

From what I’ve learned and have been told, Ricardo became a town fixture in Mesilla, New Mexcio over the last decade or so. A man who was often seen walking around town and who could be found at one of the local bars.

I met Ricardo my freshman year at New Mexico State University in 1998 and immediately I found him funny because he seemed to be this 14-year-old boy stuck in a middle aged man’s body. 

Ricardo taught a documentary class at NMSU’s journalism department and I initially found it weird the first time I met him. I was at a party of mostly college students and he was there smoking cigarettes and drinking beer like he was one of us. 

A jokester. A prankster. A juvenile delinquent who happened to be employed as a university instructor. I got the sense Ricardo only showed this side of himself to certain people.

Very soon Ricardo became one of my closest friends and mentors. While I never took one of his classes, there were many nights of beers and cigarettes at a local pool hall in which I felt I was instructed by a seriously passionate man who loved documentaries and the art of using video to tell a story.  Ricardo 101. 

We connected on a deep level for many reasons, especially the fact our heritage traced to northern New Mexico. While I was at NMSU, Ricardo put together a television program called La Musica Encantada, which featured various bands from northern New Mexico. 

Clips of his program can be found online and are widely shared by people who are fans of northern New Mexico Spanish music. This is a part of Ricardo’s legacy that is shared by thousands of people and I think he would have loved to know this.

While Ricardo was great at partying and socializing with people he liked, he had conflict at his actual job at NMSU and drew the ire of a lot of university staff members. I don’t know the details. Eventually, Ricardo lost his job on campus soon after I graduated. I remember there was animosity. 

There’s a part of me that feels bad for typing these things out about Ricardo, but at the same time, I think he would actually find this piece of writing about him noble because it’s my honest reflection and he respected honesty from his closest friends. 

His real name wasn’t even Ricardo, but that’s what he told people and many people knew him as such.

Ricardo could be brash, insulting, offensive, but beneath his bristled exterior, he was a deeply sensitive man who admired certain people at certain times—that’s  if the stars lined up a certain way and especially if there was an open beer can nearby to sip on. 

Ricardo would like you if you managed to like a little bit of him. 

My heart broke a few weeks ago when I learned Ricardo was found dead in his home after employees at a bar he frequented became concerned and called the town marshal in Mesilla to conduct a welfare check. 

How fitting for people at a bar to find Ricardo. And I don’t mean that in a bad or good way. I mean it in a matter-of-fact way. Ricardo loved the bar scene and being surrounded by music, parties, and people. I do take comfort in the fact Ricardo had good enough relationships with people that they became concerned about his welfare. 

The last time I spoke to Ricardo was maybe six years ago and I seriously regret not keeping in contact with him. I’m heartbroken.

I’m disappointed at myself for becoming too self absorbed in my own life and career, I let many of my relationships from my past fade away. Ricardo was one of the most important people in the formative years of my early adulthood.

In many ways, I saw Ricardo as a member of my family when I was away from my parents in college. He offered me really questionable advice at times, but I’ve learned over the years sometimes the advice that friends give you does not matter. What matters is that they are there.

I remember one of the funniest moments with Ricardo involved a moment of sheer heart-stopping terror. We were walking very late at night on a very dark and quiet road through Mesilla. The vegetation was thick on the side of the road with bushes and trees that stood about 10 feet high or so. This was a road where it would be very easy for someone to get lost or abducted by some sort of alien in a UFO, and nobody would know.

As we were walking, Ricardo suddenly paused and just stood still while looking into the dark bushes. I asked him what was wrong and he didn’t say anything. He just remained staring into the bushes as if he was trying to see or hear something.  No matter what I said or did to try to get his attention, he was silently fixated on these bushes, and I mean for a long time. It felt like minutes and I was getting really scared. I thought he was going mental or had a stroke. He wouldn’t budge. 

And then suddenly, like a terrified deer, Ricardo took off running for his life while screaming like a banshee. I ran too, believing La Llorona or some sort of demon was about to grab us and take our souls. 

I caught up to him with my heart pounding. And there he was in the middle of the road laughing his ass off at my fear. 

We always share that story and it makes me smile every-time I think about it. 

Ricardo, the prankster. 

Farewell old friend. 

I miss our time together in Ricardo 101.