NIELSEN, Tait Richard

The Verde Independent, Cottonwood, Arizona Tuesday, March 18, 2014 Tait Richard Nielsen passed away in January, 2014. Tait is off on another trip. He just up and left, as was his way. I sit here, laughing and crying, remembering back on the many times he swept through on his way to somewhere. "Hey, what're you doing?" he'd say. "Jump in!" Whether it was romping in the countryside, spelunking near Tucson, swimming on the creek, just out for a drive or going for a show, it was always fun with him, and it always seemed like we were back again in our teens and living a perpetual summer vacation. I laugh when I think of all the different jobs he took on when he was younger, just to be doing something unusual and prankish. A year at the sprout farm, going vegetarian, living at Packard Place in Sycamore Canyon, he and his cousin Gabe standing on a Phoenix corner, decked out in suits and ties, holding a sign saying "Will Work for Food", selling cars for a week. Yep, Tait was a world traveler, a prankster, and a forever-young character. I loved to see him rolling into the ranch. He was always off to all sorts of exotic destinations. If he imagined it, he did it. A tourist of life, with a taste for refinement, opera and fine dining, and then in cutoffs and flip-flops, at home where ever he was. He will always be a dichotomy: debonair urbanite, Cornville country boy. If it was something to do, he always had the imagination. I can picture him now, out there on the road, radio loud, top down, sun on his face with a laugh on his lips, heading into some new and unseen world. He is, in my vision, the perennial teenager. James Dean has nothing on him. I miss you. You'll always be here in my mind, cracking me up and surprising me. I'm glad I knew you. Tait leaves behind his two sons, Henry and Charlie, his mother, Margaret and his father, Jack, his brother Welby, and sister Erika, and oh so many friends. We hope to see everyone at the celebration of his life, on Saturday at 2:30 p.m., March 22, the first day of spring, at Timo Wine Bar, located at 8801 N. Central Ave, Phoenix AZ 85020, to share, grieve and celebrate his time with us. Information provided by survivors.