Goodbye, Dave

12.2.2005

David Otten, a good friend of mine, has died.

As an Internet Tombstone I set his fable about what had happened in our community in winter 1999/2000.

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Subject: Off - An Antarctican Fable
Date: Thursday 10 February 2000 12:09 pm
From: R David Otten 

AN ANTARCTICAN INTERNET COMMUNITY FABLE

Once upon a time...
One fine morning, while taking one of his several morning coffee
 breaks [he's self-employed or retired], Throm, one of our mainland
 subscribers, received a telephone call. At first Throm thought the
 person on the other end of the line was yet another telemarketer,
 but then Throm recognized some names and realized the caller was
 Blinn, one of the WS List's overseas subscribers.

Seems Blinn had received an e-mail sent very late at night by Oolah,
 another mainland List member, describing a nasty fall she'd taken a
 bit earlier, with a nice hard whack in the head to go along with it.
 Oolah is one of many of our subscribers who lives alone. Well, Blinn
 stewed a bit about the situation and then sent an e-mail back to
 Oolah suggesting a visit to a doctor, since hard whacks on the head
 aren't really good things for some of us older folks. After not
 hearing further from Oolah via e-mail for a day or so, Blinn tried
 to call Oolah on the telephone to see how Oolah was doing. Got an
 answering machine. After stewing a little longer, with visions of
 Oolha lying helpless and unconscious somewhere, Blinn decided to
 call Throm about the situation. After all, Throm was also on the
 mainland and Blinn was overseas.

So Throm called Oolah's number, as furnished by Blinn. Got the
 answering machine. Throm looked up the number on Phonedisc, and
 found the city, state and zip, but no street address. Throm knew
 that Oolah is a psychologist doing volunteer work in her community,
 so Throm found a number for the County Mental Health Department, and
 called them. They told Throm that they couldn't give out addresses
 and other information, and suggested Throm call the police, giving
 Throm the police phone number.

Throm called the police, and explained to the very nice person on the
 other end what was going on and why he and Blinn were concerned,
 also mentioning that Oolah sometimes works with the inmates at the
 County Jail. The very nice person at the police station told Throm
 that they would see if they could find Oolah there and if not, they
 would send a car over to Oolah's home.

Throm sent e-mails to Blinn, keeping Blinn up-to-date on what was
 happening.

A couple of hours later, Oolah called Throm. The police had found
 Oolah working with inmates at the County Jail, and while Oolah felt
 pretty good, Oolah did agree that a visit to the doctor was in
 order. Oolah was also very happy to find that her internet friends
 were so concerned about her well-being.

So our little Antarctican fable has a happy ending, even though it
 was off-subject. Well, maybe Throm, Blinn and Oolah use WordStar to
 write their e-mail messages - who knows?

As you might already know, this actually happened recently - I made
 up the Antarctican part.

=========================

Dave
R. David Otten, Pres. - SIGNATURE Software Systems, Inc.
6125 Yarborough LN, Lakeland FL 33813-4173
Tel: Voice/Fax 941-646-0759 (office)
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Dear Dave, we miss you.

Ahoi!

Aribert