ORANGE PARK, FL -- As the nation mourns the death of Senator John McCain, Jacksonville attorney Rick Block is taking the news of the veteran's death extra hard.
Block, who works at Morgan & Morgan, recalls living in McCain's home in Orange Park. Block was about 15 years old.
"I think they met at a Navy wives' bridge club," Block says. He's talking about McCain's first wife, Carol, and his own mother.
The two became "best buddies." In fact, when Carol was in a terrible car accident, Block's mother moved into the McCain's home to be mom and caretaker to all the kids. Carol, Block says, was in the hospital for a year and then came home to be bedridden.
At the time, McCain was a POW in Vietnam.
"Did they know he was being tortured? Yes," Block remembers. He says they knew about his injuries when his plane went down, and he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake. McCain was rescued but then taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton.
Then in 1973 McCain was released. Block says he remembers that day. The elation created an atmosphere in the home akin to feeling "like you couldn't feel the floor when you walk."
Block was a teenager, he says, with his mind on surfing and such, but he speaks with reverence when he talks about McCain's homecoming to NAS Jax.
"I was there when he got off the flight. There's a famous picture," he remembers. That picture shows McCain and his wife and kids. Block says he was standing just off to the side of the family.
Block says his family moved out of the McCain house in Orange Park when McCain returned from Vietnam.
He says, years later, he went to a book signing in Orange Park. He says he hadn't been called "Ricky" since ninth grade, but McCain saw him and said, "Ricky Block!" and gave him a hug.
It still amazes Block, who says, "Think how many tens of thousands of people he encounters."
Block stays in close contact with some of McCain's children and he says McCain wrote letters of recommendation for his own boys for college.
As for politics, Block says he didn't vote for McCain for President because they don't see issues with the same eye.
However, Block says, "Whether you agreed with him or not kinda wasn't the point. You wanted to be like him, in terms of his character."
To summarize it all, Block says, McCain was a "hero."