Casino Inn in Alpine recently hosted a memorial and fundraiser honoring local musician Rusty Faulk, one year after he lost the battle against prostate cancer.
There were only two notorious harmonica musicians in San Diego in the late 70s, many times playing together in different country bands, and both living in East County. One of them was Rusty Faulk and the other was Wayne Markus who brought his band to play at his memorial.
Casino Inn in Alpine recently hosted a memorial and fundraiser honoring local musician Rusty Faulk, one year after he lost the battle against prostate cancer.
There were only two notorious harmonica musicians in San Diego in the late 70s, many times playing together in different country bands, and both living in East County. One of them was Rusty Faulk and the other was Wayne Markus who brought his band to play at his memorial.
Susie Faulk, Rusty’s wife, organized the fundraiser to help raise awareness about prostate cancer and gather donations to fund medical research for a cure.
“I promised my husband that I would keep advocating, so no other family would have to go through this and kids won’t have to bury their dad. I just want to honor my husband,” Susie Faulk said.
Born in Alabama, Rusty Faulk started as a truck driver and became a musician when he moved to San Diego and started a family with Susie.
Kara Faulk-Paschal is the eldest of three Faulk children. She said that a simple effort to educate herself about prostate cancer turned into becoming an advocate for research.
“I didn’t know anything. But now I am going to D.C. once a year to meet with Senate and House leaders and convince them not to lower the funding for the research, as they did in the past. Last year, I met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren who also has ties to prostate cancer through her family and I am getting ready to go to D.C. again this year,” Faulk-Paschal said
“Last year, one of my daughters had people on her birthday making donations for prostate cancer and wanted blankets that she can take to a cancer center for men who are fighting this disease.”
Susie Faulk, found herself homeless less than a year after losing her spouse, but that doesn’t stop her from continuing her advocacy work. “I became homeless because after you lose your partner you go through a strong grieving period. Sometimes the fog comes over and you can’t think clearly and your decisions are not very wise,” she said. Susie Faulk said the entire family is trying hard to come out of “the fog” and “getting to a point when you realize he is really-really not coming back. So, we have to make him proud and make a life for ourselves now…without him.”
The back garden at the Casino Inn was full of musicians from all over San Diego County, joined by family and friends to honor Faulk and help fund a cure for prostate cancer.
The Faulk women managed a stand with items for auction.
One of the items was a signed gold-plated harmonica sent by Lee Oskar, a good friend and band member of Faulk’s.
Wayne Markus remembered his friendship with Faulk,
“When he won the Harmonica Musician of The Year before me, in 1979. We were the main features at the Lakeside Hotel and the only harmonica players in the country bands back around San Diego in the 70s.” Markus said Faulk was “a really good guy with a good heart. It’s a shame he’s gone. We could use him right now, you know?”
Bodo Zacharek was born in Germany and moved to San Diego where he found a family with the band members he met five years ago.
Zacharek said it was “a privilege to play with Rusty and be allowed in their world. I played things I never played before because of these guys and I can’t thank them enough. Rusty was fun and made things easy for me.”
Zacharek said he lost many friends to cancer already and is pro-active about his medical checkups, but he found out “that until it affects you personally, you never take the time to think about it and that’s the problem.”