Steve Apling made the 2008 Hilltop Hotties Calendar.
Looking through a peeling window frame, his smile carried a hint of “Don’t mess with me” in the October montage of “Hilltop’s Most Wanted.”
For two decades, Apling was exactly who the Hilltop most wanted. The Vietnam combat veteran who jumped out of planes with the Special Forces and worked in military intelligence was tough, tactical, brave and generous.
He ranked in the pantheon of cops and activists who transformed the Hilltop from a world-famous crime dive into a nice place to live.
On Wednesday, word spread that Apling had died at his home near Ferry Park the night before. He was 62.
He’d hosted a Christmas Eve dinner and mentioned he was taking antibiotics for a strep infection. The drugs were making him tired, but it did not seem serious.
Apling was a supremely private man, and the many people who called him their best friend are wondering if he was sicker than he cared to admit.
Apling, they say, was Hilltop’s finest diplomat and one of its hardest workers.
“He was just the perfect Hilltop elder statesman,” said Carol Wolfe, a city economic development supervisor who worked with him on the neighborhood councils and Tidal Wave and Safe and Clean committees.
“Steve was impatient with bureaucratic inefficiencies and redundancy, but absolutely patient with the various skill sets and concerns voiced by neighbors,” Wolfe said. “He was always a resource for those trying to problem-solve or navigate the system.”
He parlayed thousands of hours of community meetings into tens of thousands of hours of civic action.
Apling, who grew up on farms in Oregon, could fix anything.
A master scavenger, he could raise a crew to take a porch off a house set for demolition, and rebuild it on a home that needed that particular improvement.
His crews included young people who needed skills and work. He gave them on-the-job training, then connected them with customers. The Wrecking Crew, as the neighbors know that team, can tile a kitchen, build a fence, make a garden or take down a tree. They’re an affordable neighborhood resource.
A master gardener, Apling dispensed advice and seeds at the plant table at Peace Lutheran Church every Sunday with Sally Perkins. If you knew Apling, his plants would end up in your yard, thanks to his greenhouse and experiments. They’ve helped make Hilltop one of Tacoma’s garden spots.
A master of computer mechanics, Apling refurbished donated computers for after-school students at Peace Lutheran’s Hilltop Scholars. He was planning to upgrade Michael Putnam’s computer, too.
Michael, 14, is the grandson of Dee Margeson, one of Apling’s great friends on the neighborhood council.
“Steve was a grandpa, uncle and my good friend,” Michael said. “I always knew he was there to help me, but not now. I had a computer, and I wanted to put more gigabytes on it. I dreamed about Steve dying before we could do it.”
He told his grandma about the dream before Christmas.
Now Margeson can’t look at her yard without crying. Almost every design, idea and plant is there by the grace of Apling. When her walnut tree had to come down, Apling arrived with a smoke tree to plant in its place, and a lesson in proper planting technique.
But Apling was not all coffee chat, smiles and smoke trees.
“He could be judgmental about ‘kids who don’t bother to study,’” Perkins said. “But bring him an actual situation involving a Hilltop Scholar or neighbor kid, and the first words out of his mouth were ‘How can I help?’”
Apling fancied himself a grump and backed it up with a 2 million-power spotlight he aimed at anyone making night mischief, especially in Ferry Park. He’d worked with Metro Parks to revive it as a playground, and he protected it for the children for whom it was meant.
“Steve lived his life, at least the part I saw, helping others,” Perkins said.
“You know the phrase ‘There’s an app for that’? Well, for a whole bunch of things, Steve was ‘the app for that.’”
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677 kathleen.merryman @thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/street
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.