Re: The passing of Don S
I am ashamed that I am just hearing about this now. Heartbroken. Don and I last spoke late spring or early in the summer. Life just got "busy" with work and the kids. I realized back in Aug I had not heard from him, which was unusual, and planned to give him a call, but I never got around to it. My boating has been limited the past couple seasons with the kids getting older and me coaching a lot of sports, so I have not poked my head into iBoats that much. Still, Don would always find something to call me about and complain over
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I've known Don since the late 90's, when I first posted about an old POS I had just purchased on another forum. The next few months I was Don's personal punch line. My misadventures in getting that thing to run over the following months gave him a lifetime of laughs and made us fast friends. No matter what stupid thing I did, he never gave up on me. Never did I have a prouder moment than when, after a while, I was answering questions about the old AQ B series Volvo's for people. He emailed me privately and said he was handing off that engine topic to me, stating he couldn't have come up with better answers and I was posting approaches he hadn't considered. I told him the only reason I could do that was because he taught me everything I knew. His response was "Yes, but it was YOU who listened and learned". Now, let's not be foolish - of course he still answered just about every damn post that came through, but it felt good to have that rare validation from him.
While Don was a great resource, and could almost always put you on the fix, he was an even better teacher. I think many people missed that side of him. If you showed any interest at all in learning about the "why", he would spend hours with you. Nothing ticked him off more than someone who would come in for a fix and then leave and not post results, not because he wanted his ego stroked, but to reaffirm his advice was correct so he could file the info away for the next person in need. He was never too proud to learn something new and he would humbly admit that he learned stuff all the time from us. As for files, boy did he keep files. There wasn't a diagram or procedure he couldn't provide you. We often talked about him sending me everything he had so I could archive it for him in case of a catastrophic failure. Neither of us anticipated this kind of catastrophe, else Don sure would have planned better for it. I am so sorry to the iBoats community that I didn't press the issue more. We both clearly though we had plenty of time.
I have spent more hours than I can count with him on the phone talking about everything from NASCAR and cats (that friggin' cat and it's whining!) to the leaky roofed shack he had bought a few years ago. Countless conversations on the ups and downs of his personal life. Nevertheless, a highlight of my day was seeing the caller ID from Alaska or Washington. He was constantly trying to get me to come and spend a week with him. One of those terrible regrets I will always have is that we never did get to sit down and enjoy one of those hundreds of beers we talked about having together.
The one thing I will say for sure is that, if he can see this thread from above, he is having a fit. He never wanted credit. He just loved to help and he never took well to big "thank yous". I can't imagine what all this talk about how great he was is doing to him up there, but tough Don. I will miss you my friend.
-Mike
P.S. Here is an old email from Don that he sent me when he was moving from AK to WA. I had simply asked him if he was nervous at all about the move. I share this with everyone becasue in the last few lines you can see the "real" Don. Even after being friends and chatting on the phone for close to 10 years at that point, he was still dumbfounded at how these dang internet friendships worked. And despite the countless terrors he experienced on and off the water (he had some amazing stories), watching his handmade furniture be packed up was perhaps the most terrifying for him.
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Well, spent the first day of many without furniture. Couldn't stand it and now have my computer on several different sizes of cardboard boxes, and sitting on the floor (for short amounts of time) with my legs crossed till the pain makes me try to get up off the floor. Decided to sleep here because it was a lot cheaper than hitting a motel in the tourist trap of the north for a $130 a night for nothing.
Slept great, use pads and regular sheets and pillows and blankets. Getting up off the floor.................... hmmmmmm. must be getting old... I really miss chairs!!!!!
Anyway, tomorrow morning I sign off the computer for sure for a while. We catch the 5PM Ferry out of here to WA.
They picked up the container with our furniture on it this after noon. What a process. Truck wouldn't go up the steep hill. Kept spinning his wheels. Loose gravel, wet rainy road. Driver called it a goat path when he came down.>....... Before hooking up to it. Ended up taking a second truck to help pull a 20' container up our little hill. I was at the top to keep the neighbors from going down while the trucks were coming up. Wife sang loud with her hands over here ears.........
Anyway, we pack up 2 trucks, 4 cats and a few cloths and some bedding and heading for the Ferry tomorrow for our 36 hour boat ride thru the inside passage. FINALLY............. REST!!!!!!!!
You ask me the other day in an email if I was nervous, then I wasn't. When they started packing the furniture, I learned to understand morning sickness.
I am setting here with dead legs, in front of a computer on cardboard boxes, telling this to someone I have never met, somehow seems odd.
PS. still not nervous......... Moved right straight to "Scared ****less"
Later
Don
