Richard Allen ‘Dicki’ Klingenberg

BEAR VALLEY, CA — Richard Allen (Dicki) Klingenberg died of a heart attack on December 19, 2022, in a Modesto, CA, hospital where he had been transported with chest pains. He was 73.

A native of La Jolla, Dickie led a charmed life. His good looks, magnetic personality and generosity served him well in the San Diego restaurant business and on the ski slopes of Mt. Reba in the High Sierra. He was a popular veteran bartender at the well-known Chart House restaurants in Shelter Island and La Jolla, and often mistaken for the actor Robert Redford.

Dicki settled in Bear Valley in the High Sierra over the past 25 years, where he bartended, taught skiing at Mt. Reba, and pampered stray dogs.

The only son of Allen and Peggie Klingenberg, he attended Mary Star of the Sea grammar school in La Jolla where he was an altar boy, and later graduated from La Jolla

December 19, 2022

High school in 1967.

An avid surfer in his teens, he may have inherited a passion for surfing from his father, a founding member of the Sunset Cliffs Surf Club and pioneering longboard surfer starting in the 1930s. One of Dicki’s best friends in the well-known surfing group at La Jolla’s Windansea Beach during the 1960s -’70s was legendary surfer, Butch Van Artsdalen. Dicki was also a member of Windansea’s “Pump House Gang”, made famous by author Tom Wolfe in 1968.

It is likely that Dicki’s father also instilled in

him a fervor for mountain climbing, starting with family camping trips in the 1950s to Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, then escalating to rigorous backpacking expeditions through Mineral King, Kings Canyon, Mt. Whitney and Yosemite.

After moving to Bear Valley, he became increasingly involved with skiing, and was a talented skier and ski instructor at Mt. Reba. He taught thousands of lessons through the years to children and adults - beginners as well as advanced.

Dicki was accomplished in construction and remodeling, no matter the inclement weather and high altitudes, and always made time to help out a friend, whether it was repairing a rooftop deck or hauling lumber up flights of steep stairs during a snowstorm.

Humans weren’t the only ones who gravitated to Dicki. He was a dog’s best friend, not only to his own dogs, Dugan, Duffey,

Bella and Lefty, (to name a few) but neighbors’ and strangers’ dogs as well. He sometimes would forget a person’s name, but never a dog’s name. Bear Valley dogs would tramp through the meadow in summer and the snow in winter to visit Dicki for hours and even days before returning to their owners.

Occasionally, a Brown Bear cub would push its way into the house and steal bananas from the kitchen counter before retreating outside to its waiting formidable mother.

He was a longtime member of All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla. He leaves a son, Keir; grandsons, Koll and Ethan; a sister, Joani; a deceased sister, Trissy; nieces and nephews, Lisa, Jason, Rose and Allen; and his dog, Lefty.

Services in San Diego and in Bear Valley are pending.

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