Obituary

A funeral service will be held on Thursday, January 5th at 12pm at Moles Greenacres (5700 NW Drive, Ferndale) followed by a graveside service with military honors. All are invited back into the funeral home chapel afterwards for a reception.

Clell “Bud” Kinsey is perhaps the only man on the planet who would have Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” share the same side of a mix tape with Bruce Springsteen’s rendition of “Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town”. If you’re not familiar with the tunes then that can only mean you did not share a ride with him for the near decade he had it on a loop while he drove his pristinely maintained Mercury Cougar around Bellingham calmly remarking that the only way to get anywhere is to “Go Fast and Turn Left”. Whether you are familiar or not you might like to search the internet for The Boss and his acoustic yuletide ballad and put it on repeat yourself while you read about the life of our very own Boss. (Or for that matter any time you yourself go out cruising for stamps.)
It’s well worth mentioning as is the case with these things that Bud is survived by his brother Jimmy and his sister Reba, his own children, Laurie, Michael, Karen and Barb and his many grandchildren and great grandchildren. I say it’s worth mentioning because this brief snapshot into this man’s life is nothing compared to the legacy he left behind in their minds and hearts.
First of all, Bud lived.
Bud was born 10th to a family of 12 siblings. It’s not unusual that he did not graduate high school, opting instead to enlist in the Army in wake of WW2 with so many others. He served his one term with an artillery unit during peacetime before returning home. He tried civilian life for a couple years before opting once again to return to service. This time he decided to lend his talents towards the US Air Force, which had only just been established a few years before around the time he joined the Army. He attended training schools for auto and engine mechanics, construction equipment repair, metallurgy, welding and leadership among others. He traveled the US and the world during his service which is no surprise. Finally, during the Vietnam War, the Air Force needed a stable and long-term heavy-repair capability and in 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara asked the Air Force to develop its own combat construction team. These teams would be highly mobile self-sufficient, 404-person mobile squadrons, capable of rapid response and independent operations in remote, high-threat environments worldwide. Two combat civil engineering teams were created, RED HORSE was born and MSgt Cell “Bud” Kinsey was chosen as one of their maintenance superintendents. It was Vietnam and he didn’t like to talk about it so we won’t. He retired in 1970 and took his welding and construction skills home and before retiring once again, this time as a welder with ARCO Cherry Point in Ferndale, WA. RED HORSE would never leave him though as most of us know it is the chosen name for his deliciously spicy pickles… that also go great with peanut butter. He’d say “they’ll knock your socks off” and if you looked under the table, his socks would indeed somehow manage to fly right off!
More importantly, Bud Loved.
Bud loved many things like many of us. As a young man he loved football and was quite good at it as the stories go. His stories revolved around being a barefoot kicker and he could back it up with an example of his prowess at the local park. He was an avid diver for many years as well and spent many summers diving off the back of his boat hunting oysters, starfish and Dungeness crab. Everyone in his family knew how to properly shuck and eat a fresh oyster at an early age everyone had a job to help prepare a great low country boil. When it came to fishing he was a true wonder as not once did he ever catch a fish! He always seemed to have the urge to use the restroom and not long after handing his line to one of his grandchildren there would be a bite. There’s something to be said for a fisherman who always gave away the biggest fish story.
Giving away the little joys in life was an integral part of who he was and spreading laughter and was certainly no exception. He was a man whose practical jokes on friends and family members are legendary. What separated his larks and pranks from today’s internet sensations is that his were designed to make you laugh even if the joke was on you. He would plan out his little tricks weeks in advance and spend the entire time laying the story line to thicken the plot until the day came and the jig was up! It was this singular passion for fun and laughter in his family that allowed him to spin a tale over several weeks of a mysterious fast cat that continued to leave presents in his back yard and escape unseen. Then, one day he convinced those same children that he had caught that cat under a hat and needed their help to grab it before it escaped when he lifted the hat. Cleverly he also convinced their parents it would be great fun to watch their children eagerly jam their hands into a fresh pile of what the cat left behind under the hat! The jokes went on and on with raw eggs cleverly disguised as ping pong balls, watermelons filled with pudding, pies filled with mashed potatoes and a tradition of Christmas Eve jokes that will never die. He loved the holidays so much in fact that he left his Christmas lights up all year and turned them on for Trick-or-Treaters. For good measure he would even play Christmas music for the costumed kids and was known to give out treats of fresh scoops of ice cream and whole frozen crab!
The moral of the story is that Bud Kinsey was a magical man. He could pull candy out of the ceiling, make waking up at 3 am to sing the National Anthem outside in the cold winter air a fond memory, beat anyone across the ice crusted pool on New Year’s Eve and made the best Rubber Band guns this side of Mars. People will be telling tales of his shenanigans accompanied by his sparkling blue eyes, a smile that consumed every inch of his face and a laugh that was so real it deserved its own name for lifetimes to come.
“I’m not the answer man” he would say, but there are still some lasting bits of advice he left behind. Don’t whine. Everything has its place. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. If two halves of a candy bar are unequal in size, keep taking bites until they are the same size. If you fall down, jump up and say Hot Dog. If you dig down deep there’s a puppy at the bottom. He was a very honest man and perhaps many thought it was just a joke when he would say “it’s better to owe someone for the rest of your life than never pay them back.” Looking back though it seems like the greatest advice of all as we will all owe him for the joy he brought us for the rest of our lives. That being said he always said it with a smile so I’m pretty sure he really just meant we would settle up in the next life.