Bob, a second-generation member, considers the association part of his family heritage.
By Bob Richards, F4196S
August 2017
If you feel guilty telling your friends that you’re getting ready to travel again in your motorhome to see America, then the Family Motor Coach Association is not for you. But if you’re a teenager and your parents embrace camping, both for fun and business, then my personal story is for you.
My Story
My dad, Rick Richards, F4196, got involved with FMCA to support his business and his need to travel Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana for his company. Dad would leave on Sunday and return on Friday.
He grew tired of being away from the family, so he decided to purchase a travel trailer and take the family on the road with him in the summer months. He’d place the trailer in a state park, go work his towns around that park, and return for dinner. My brothers and I would explore the countryside. Before I graduated from high school, I had been in every state of the Union.
Dad then purchased a Landau motorhome. He configured it so he could place samples in the bed area and write orders at the dinette. Dad loved the movie The Music Man. As customers entered the coach, he played a tape of the song “Seventy-Six Trombones” and handed them a drink. He wrote many orders in that coach.
I became a second-generation FMCA member in the mid-1980s. I took Dad’s number (F4196S). In April 1988, Family Motor Coaching published a story about how I used my first coach, a Winnebago Itasca, as a mobile video production/editing vehicle.
I bought a Safari Trek in 2007. In 2014, I purchased our current motorhome, a Monaco Monarch.
Family Tradition
FMCA has been a family tradition. Last year, Dad helped me plan our Route 66 trip, which we took with four other FMCA members. I called Dad every day as we traveled this great country. Our plan was to end the trip in November 2016 and return to the Ohio Masonic Home in Springfield, Ohio, to celebrate Dad’s 99th birthday. We had planned a party where I would show the 2,000 photos I shot and to announce to Dad that I had been elected the new president of FMCA’s Tri-State Traveliers chapter.
One day before I arrived, my father had a stroke. Eight days later, he died.
Dad didn’t get to see the trip photos, or learn about me becoming a chapter officer. But, I got to be with my father for the remaining days of his life. And the following week, my wife, Libby, and I met up with the Tri-State Traveliers folks for our final rally of 2016. These friends helped to get me through a very hard part of my life. Dad would have been proud to meet them.
FMCA is a very special community. It provided me an opportunity to experience a childhood that most people can only dream about. Now Libby and I are living my parents’ dream: that of full-timers. Thank you, FMCA!