We really wish he hand’t done this

Captain Ray Skelton, 63, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority’s security, environmental and government affairs director, and foreign trade zone manager, died October 16 at his home in Duluth following a courageous battle with cancer.

A former Great Lakes ship master, Captain Skelton had worked for the Duluth Seaway Port Authority since 1990. He was the Port Authority’s liaison on maritime trade and environmental issues with elected and appointed officials at regional and national levels.

His long and rich maritime career is best described by some remembrances put together for him by former Port Director Davis Helberg. Mr. Helberg read these rembrances at Captain Skelton’s funeral:

First, Ray, as I found myself saying a few times when we worked together at the Port Authority — and I said it only a few times, mind you — “I really wish you hadn’t done this.” You were one of the most indestructible people I’ve known, and I honestly thought you would endure until at least 95.

I always imagined you at 95 as hell-on-wheels at the senior citizen center, rattling the doctors, cracking up the nurses, clanging your little bell at 5 o’clock sharp and calling it the “Bud Light low-level alarm.”

You seemed to have a cast iron constitution — a natural complement, I often thought, to your cast iron views of who the good guys were and what was right with the world and what was wrong. John Kubow will remember when we heard a description of Russel Schwandt at his memorial, a saying that would also fit you, my friend:

“He may not always have been right, but he was never in doubt.”

But that’s how you were, and I admired you for that.

You were also loyal to the causes you supported, fiercely loyal. The Submarine Service. The U.S. Navy. The U.S. military in general. The U.S. Merchant Marine. The shipping industry in general. Great Lakes commercial ships.

Note I said “commercial ships.” You didn’t give a hoot about recreational craft, unless they were in the way. You often said, “I won’t set foot on any boat where I can’t call the engine room.”

You were also loyal to the Port of Duluth-Superior and its various causes and organizations, and to the Port Authority. When we agreed on an objective, you would not stop until it was achieved. You were relentless. Your perseverance led to major development projects for the Port and our industry. You were a bulldog on legislative and regulatory issues. You gained the ear and earned the respect of decision-makers at every political level, despite sometimes being a creature of impulse.

A creature of impulse. Live for the moment. Get a laugh, or at least a smile, out of someone.

Like the time when Senator Paul Wellstone was in our board room for a working lunch and, afterwards, you were taking photos. We were all standing behind the board table and you told Senator Wellstone — all five-foot-five of him — “Stand up, Senator, stand up so we can see you.” And the good senator let you have it pretty good until we all started laughing so hard that he had to laugh, too.

And yet you were also tightly wired, sometimes given to reflexive action. We were in a staff meeting and a secretary said you had a phone call. You leaped up and didn’t notice that the port hole window was open and you smashed your head into the heavy bronze frame. Hard. As a former Navy boxer, you instinctively reacted with a powerful right-hand uppercut, connecting squarely. It was no contest: Port Hole 2, Skelton 0. But you charged down the hall to take your call.

Last November we were in a crowded conference room at the Duluth Entertainment & Convention Center for a Gales of November event, and you and I were standing next to a side wall. As the next speaker, you had just arrived and might have been a little keyed up. Not far away was a couple from Wisconsin who train monkeys to help the disabled. It’s a wonderful cause, and they always bring a monkey to the Gales. The monkey’s harmless and in a harness. And just as the crowd was hushed and the speaker was making a key point, you blurted out, “Hey, there’s a bleepin’ monkey in here!” And I shushed you and said it’s okay, and you said, again with gusto, “But I hate bleepin’ monkeys!”

You told me last summer that you didn’t want any mourning at your funeral, “none of that sad crap.” You said you wanted people to celebrate life, to have a few laughs, to “have one for me.”

I know the people gathered here today will do that, in your honor, but none of us will forget these past few months and your incredible courage, your amazing stamina, your sheer strength of will. No fighter ever got up from the mat to keep on fighting more than you.

I hope wherever you are, they publish a magazine and, if they do, I hope they always run a picture of a ship on the cover. Otherwise they will learn, as we did, that you will have something to say about it. That was how we started calling you “Ship for Brains.”

You know that we always used that as a term of endearment, or what passes for same on the waterfront.

And, yes, they’d better have a waterfront in that new place. Well, of course, they must. How could they call it heaven if there’s no port, no waterfront?

I’m not sure they’ll have a Detroit Lions jacket for you, but yes, there has to be a waterfront. I know ours won’t be the same without you.

Fair Winds
and Smooth Sailing.