I was so happy to see Nokie the first time at CAAS. Like meeting a Beatle for me. When I was learning to play guitar, everyone in school was into guitar. If you could pick up a guitar, you could play the "Satisfaction" lick or the Ventures "Pipeline" bass run.
I had an album called Learn to Play Guitar with the Ventures - Volume 1. It had its own style of notation and covered 4 songs: Walk Don't Run, Pipeline, Raunchy and Tequila. First they played the song with all the instruments then the album had cuts with each instrument deleted so you could play the various missing parts. They would say "The ventures play Tequila minus the lead guitar". It was cool to learn the lead, rhythm and bass parts then play each of them with the Ventures. Those days of sitting in my room and working on those Venture tunes are as vivid as yesterday. I not only learned to play the parts, I learned the important skill of resting my hand on the record player side and deftly moving the needle back any number of grooves with great accuracy.
Then much later in life, I enjoyed meeting and getting to know Nokie over several years at CAAS. I was amazed he was there. He told us lots of great stories of playing with the Ventures. And he loved a good joke and could trade them all day if allowed.
I had bought a pretty hollow body used Mosrite guitar years before that I just could not play. It had such a tiny neck that it had to have slinky or extra light strings and I play with way too much force. So I took it to CAAS, got a picture with Nokie playing it for my files and sold it there.
I, as many others here, enjoyed his music for years and was so happy to see his CAAS performances. I particularly liked to hear him play Quando, Quando, Quando. We'll sure miss him. So I recommend you Walk, Don't Run to the liquor cabinet and have a Tequila for Nokie.