[ExI] dogs lie?

[John Grigg]

William Flynn Wallace wrote:
"I appreciate your effort to write me a little note.  Virtually all of my
old friends are dead - all of them.  Several were older but some died way
too young. "

I recently lost a friend by the name of Mike Duckette, who was like an
uncle to me, and one of the most friendly and caring human beings I have
ever known. He was a big gregarious guy who was sort of like having Santa
Claus as a pal. The man had married the love of his life, who he had two
children with, only to lose her to cancer in 1995. And then a few years
later he was seriously injured when he physically restrained a very large
special needs student in his classroom that had gone berserk for some
reason. He could not work as a teacher after his injury and so he went on
disability. Despite recurring pain, he said it was ultimately a blessing
because he loved to read and pursue his multitude of hobbies, and now he
had the time for it. He was a man that was alien to the concept of "being
bored!" Lol On Mondays he would meet at a retired friend's house to play
tabletop roleplaying games, and then on Thursday they would meet again to
watch movies and television series on the biggest wide screen tv I have
ever seen in a private home. I arranged my work schedule so that I could
join them on Thursday as much as I could. This was a group of about six
guys, with Mike as the ringleader. Our host was a gentleman by the name of
Tom Perry, who has an entire wall of awards for his engineering
achievements in the satellite telecommunications field. He is one of the
few people I know who could give Spike a run for his engineering money! Lol

I severely regret not having stayed in touch with Mike when I moved to the
Philippines. but I was concerned that reaching out to him would make me
extra homesick. But my significant other implored me to call him up,
knowing what he meant to me, and so I did, and we spoke for about two hours
catching up. It felt great and he gave me lots of good advice about getting
along with my new family. I thought to myself how I would definitely call
him up at least once a month from then on, but then only two weeks later he
got very sick and was taken to the hospital where he was unconscious much
of the time. A month later he was gone. I was in shock at the news because
he had seemed so alive only a few weeks earlier, and he had beaten the odds
before, with previous illnesses. My friends and I thought of Mike as
somehow able to out maneuver the Grim Reaper, but that was not to be. I
just wish he had lived another two or three years to see developments in my
life. A bad decision on Mike's part had largely sealed his fate. He has
been very overweight and had a gastric bypass, which had resulted in an
infection. But he had another medical procedure scheduled and so he had
that done and procrastinated seeing a doctor about the symptoms which were
signs of infection. He didn't think his health was under serious threat
from it, but that turned out to be a fatal act of procrastination. The
doctors said the two weeks in which he did not promptly act probably cost
him his life.

I think in a low key way Mike may have had a death wish after his wife died
at a fairly young age from cancer. He ate whatever he pleased and became
grossly overweight, though he carried it well being a big man. And he let
his home become a mess on a scale I have not even seen in the Philippines!
Lol But through it all he had a band of close friends, an autistic son who
lived with him (they would make extra money doing security guard work in
their custom van with non-police lights) and a local science fiction fandom
that was sort of like extended family.

I'd like to think that there is an afterlife and that Mike and his wife
have reunited. Mike had been an atheist until his final years when he said
he had reconsidered things. Cryonics of course could not be an option
because he was not wealthy and no company would ever possibly insure him,
considering his health problems. My friends back home say Mikey, Mike's son
is inconsolable, but I hope in time that he can find some level of peace.

John

On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 6:54 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> If it suits you to believe it, then fine.  I think that it is probable
> that the dog heard something outside that you didn't hear.  But it would
> not surprise me much if you were right.
>
> I appreciate your effort to write me a little note.  Virtually all of my
> old friends are dead - all of them.  Several were older but some died way
> too young.
>
> You said you were Eeyore and your wife was Tigger, or is that backwards?
>
> I hope you are in a place easily escaped.
>
> Rain, rain, and more rain.  Extreme weather everywhere.  The BRitish Open
> (golf) was played in beautiful weather, totally uncharacteristic of
> Sandwich, England, where clouds, wind and rain are typical.  Can extreme
> weather be great?   bill w
>
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 6:05 PM Gregory Jones via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> on a phone here do pardon misspellings and lcs.
>>
>> witnessed two small housedogs rassling and tussling.  both dogs like to
>> bark at pssers by.  in the rassling match dog b was clearly getting the
>> worst at the paws of dog a.
>>
>> suddenly dog b alerted, jumped up and began ferociously barking out the
>> window, even tho no one was there.  dog a immediately abandoned the
>> rassling match and jumped to the window to see what marvelous barkage had
>> come inti view.  as dog a looked about in confusion, dog b jumped dog a,
>> with the new advatage.
>>
>> did i witness a dog make a devious strategy?  did i see one dog lie to
>> the other?  then take advantage of it?  i have always thought of dogs as
>> being such honest beasts.
>>
>> spike
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