Parents Father: RASMUSSEN, Einer Ralph Mother: PEDERSEN, Dorothy Juliana Birth Born on July 06, 1955 in Fayetteville, Fayette Co., GA Death Died on January 24, 1991 in Guatemala Buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, Wake Co., NC Notes Historical Information: Einer Rasmussen was a long-haired, half-crazy, wildly handsome young man who crammed three lives' worth of adventure into 35 years, sprinting around the globe as if he were late to the world's best party. When he was about 14, he slipped out of his house and hitchhiked to Florida, scaring the pants off his mother until he called, a week later, to tell her how nice it was in Daytona Beach, and how she should move there and walk her dogs in the sunshine. When he was maybe 25, he joined his sister in France, enchanted by her stories of beautiful women on every street, and their European jaunt lasted for the next 18 months, including a period in Norway when they lived with the future singer for a-ha, only months removed from his international pop-star fame. When he went to California, he traveled by boxcar or the luck of his thumb, carrying his life in a backpack. People just adopted him on the road. He was too magnetic, too likeable to ignore. When he traveled to India, he fell asleep under a tree outside the airport and woke up to Indians massaging his feet. If Einer were alive today, he would probably try to coax you into joining him in Tibet, or for a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. But on his 55th birthday, Einer remains the most compelling soul resting in Oakwood Cemetery. Almost 20 years have passed since he died, perhaps fittingly, on a volcano in Guatemala, and wherever he is, he demands to be remembered - even emulated. "Everything he did was beautiful," said his sister, Rene. "He could lie on a couch like a cat. When he went into a pool and swam, it was like a ballet. He had beautiful hands. Beautiful feet. Gorgeous skin. I hated it." He seems, even 20 years gone, like a man incapable of aging, let alone dying. Everyone has a friend from childhood who lived life harder, laughed more easily, took bigger risks and had more fun: Finny from "A Separate Peace." Some people come equipped with volume knobs cranked up to 11, and possess no sense of danger. "He was trying to find some deeper meaning besides settling down in a cul de sac," said old friend Conrad Hunter from ECU, who recently started a Facebook page in Einer's memory. "He had a dark side, too, if he drank too much tequila." From boyhood, Einer seemed to itch to escape Fayetteville, his hometown. He collected soda bottles, saving the deposits to buy himself a green bicycle. In high school, he hitched to Myrtle Beach. From college at Eastern Carolina University, he hitched to California, getting robbed in San Francisco, learning to live life out of a backpack and carry only what he wouldn't miss. After college, he would vanish for a year or more, working odd jobs, or once on a kibbutz, just long enough to keep him moving. His mother Dorothy would get calls in Fayetteville - Regina from Napoli or Su Ling from Taiwan - all of them wondering when Einer would return. But by then, he was on to the next page, scouting locations. "He knew everything about geography," Rene said. "Every island. Every ocean. Every mountain. Every river. When he was planning a trip, you'd see him with the lights on, all night, looking at maps. Planning it. Writing it down." When he left for Mexico, with plans to reach Costa Rica, Rene balked at joining him. Those countries, she warned him, were rife with guerrilla wars, and he'd come home in a coffin. So when the family got the call from Guatemala in January of 1991, Rene went to collect her brother. The embassy called it an accident. Einer died on Pacaya, a live, smoke-belching volcano, the officials there explained. He had fallen while snapping a picture. Rene didn't believe it. She still doesn't. Einer was too sure-footed to tumble down 25 feet and die. The traveler Einer had befriended in Guatemala kept changing his story about the circumstances, and when Rene talked to villagers below the volcano, they all asked if the police had arrested Einer's companion. But when Rene climbed to the spot and looked around, she saw a cross formed by two pieces of wood, and she felt peace washing over her. Wherever Einer was, she thought, and whatever happened, he was all right now. She brought him home in a glass-topped coffin for his burial in Oakwood Cemetery alongside governors and generals. Today, she and Einer's mother live in rural Chatham County outside Chapel Hill, and as she walks down her driveway and considers his birthday, Rene passes a battered green Renault Alliance, parked and pointed toward the road. "This is Einer's," she says. "Can you believe it? It just doesn't seem to want to go." She still keeps a pair of Einer's pajama pants. He didn't own much, so anything he touched is a relic. More deeply, on the days when Rene does yoga, she can feel Einer holding her hand, showing her the wall between their worlds is very thin, and soon to fall. Josh Shaffer The News and Observer Raleigh, North Carolina July 7,2010 Sources Newspaper Obituary: The Fayetteville Observer Fayetteville,NC Feb 10,1991 Obituary Images Einer Rasmussen III