Bowlegs. Crusty Old Cracker. Old Crankypants. Acidman. Those were some of the nicer nicknames used to describe him, and he relished every one.
He could be unbelievably mule-headed. Witness this three part interview with Rob.
Did he know damned well his was risking his job by blogging about it?
Yep.
Did his company have every right to fire him for it?
Yep.
If you were starting a blog today, would he recommend you not write about your employer without your employer's express permission?
Yep.
Would he, on the other hand, do anything differently?
Nope.
He was the same way when it came to friendships, wimmen (his word, not mine), fatherhood, his ex-wife, music, politics -- the man lived to yank some kind of visceral reaction out of his friends, family and readers, and it didn't matter whether it was a good reaction or bad, as long as it was passionate and real. If he could wind your watch a bit too tight, he was a happy man.
Everything I wrote about him here still holds true.
I send him a psychic raspberry every time he floats up out of the either to tap me on the shoulder and remind me that he didn't just exist -- he lived. He has a funny form of immortality.
Sometimes his unreasonable side rears it's head from the Great Beyond.
Sometimes something pops into my brain that brings him instantly to mind and puts a great big grin on my face.
Call me nuts, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Old Crankypants had a heavenly hand in outing the info that Global Warming data was made up out of whole cloth. ("We're all gonna die!")
Sometimes historic events bring him clearly into my mind's eye.
His spirit inhabits every blogmeet where more than one Blown-Eyed or BlownStar blogger attends.
He reaches out of my Site Meter to tap me on the shoulder from time to time. I'll be really sad when I don't get a referral from his blogroll any more.
It's not just me he visits in dreams.
He is missed... and he is living in on in the hearts of his friends. Go wander the dusty streets of the Gutrumbles ghost town and tell him I said, "Hey."
5 comments:
Wow. 4 years. Doesn't seem like it's been that long. There's still no one else out there in the bloggysphere even remotely like him.
They not only broke the mold he came out of, they burned the blueprints and sacked the plant manager...
*Quietly weeps in the corner*
Well said Leslie. Wow. And spot on....
I still light a candle for him at church.
Wow, four years! You know, we almost named Henry Adam Henry Robert, specifically after him. Plus that would have created the sickeningly cute pattern of an R middle name for all three kids. I sometimes wonder what he'd have thought of things since. Can you imagine, Obama as President under Acidblogging? Heh.
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