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Tag: obituary

  • Thinking About My Friend Chris Lee: Macintosh Aficionado, Music Guru, and Eidetic Memory Man for Movie Dialog

    Chris hanging out in Brunswick. This was my second photo with my Sony Cybershot 2MP camera.

    Recently, I was telling my City Tech colleague Kate Falvey about a habit of thought that I have when I encounter things that I would ordinarily want to share with a specific person who I think would be interested in that thing even though that person might have passed away. That kind of thought happens more often with my friend Chris Lee, who passed away in 2016. Our mutual interest in computers, pop culture, and video games was the currency of our friendship over many years that began when he saw me pull out my Apple Powerbook 145B in Mr. Norris’ Graphic Design class at Brunswick High School. Later, after we had a falling out around 2000, he mended the bridge and we became good friends again.

    Me in a green hoodie and Chris in a blue jacket outdoors at night.

    When we were younger, our great ambition was to open a computer repair shop and publicize it with a video of us marching through flames as Rammstein’s “Du Hast” blasts in the background. He pushed the limits of good sense by loading what I believe to be a record number of Control Panels and Extensions that would dance along the bottom of his Mac’s boot screen–at least three full lines of icons at 1024 x 768. He created archives of sound that surpassed mortal lifespans capable of listening to it all. He mastered anything released for the Nintendo GameCube. He had a phenomenal memory for movie dialog–a specialized eidetic memory that would have been a superpower at trivia night.

    Chris Lee dancing in his parents' living room.

    The last thing that we talked about was how much had gone on in our lives so far. I texted him, “Too bad we don’t have a time traveling DeLorean. We could stop by and blow our younger selves’ minds 😎.” His reply and last text to me was, “I wish I had a DeLorean.”

    LEGO time travel DeLorean with the driver side door open and Doc Brown hanging out.

    Not long after that, I got a call from our friend Kenny. Chris had died. He was back in Brunswick where our friendship had started. I couldn’t really write about it then, and even now, it’s difficult. I’m not able to say all that I feel and how I wish that I could share just a few things with Chris again.

    Chris Lee's grave stone embossed with UGA's G logo and the Apple Computer apple with a bite taken out logo.

    When I visit my parents, I try to visit Chris’s grave in Smyrna Cemetery, which is between Nahunta and Hortense. His grave marker highlights some of his life’s loves, including Apple Computer. Of course, I wish that Chris could hear when I talk, but I know that what I say is only heard by regret.

  • Michael Bishop, Southern Science Fiction Writer, Has Passed

    I was sad to learn today that Michael Bishop, the southern science fiction writer, had passed away about a month ago on Nov. 13 in LaGrange, Georgia, a small town near the Alabama border–north of Columbus and southwest of Atlanta. I had the honor of moderating a discussion panel called, “Engineering the Future and Southern Fried Science Fiction and Fantasy,” at the 2009 Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) Conference in Atlanta that featured Mr. Bishop alongside F. Brett Cox, Paul Di Filippo, Andy Duncan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Jack McDevitt, and Warren Rochelle. It was a lively discussion and I remember him being friendly and kind throughout the event where he was the Guest of Honor. The pictures above and below are from his GoH reading on Friday, June 12.

  • Remembering Aunt Lettie Ann (1942-2019) and Uncle William “Doc” Cook (1941-2015)

    Uncle Doc (William Cook) and Aunt Lettie Ann at their home in 2009.

    My Aunt Lettie Ann Cook passed away on May 17, 2019. I flew to my hometown to fulfill her request that I speak at her funeral and serve as a pallbearer. Her husband of 54 years, William Cook, who I knew as Uncle Doc, had preceded her in death in 2015.

    They were both good people, who I and many others miss. I am reminded of fun-filled childhood pool parties at their house–one being particularly memorable during which I used a snorkel face mask for the first time and I played with my cousin Mark’s bad-ass Boba Fett action figure. That was probably around 1981. Or, learning from Aunt Lettie Ann how she made ceramic sculptures. Or, learning from Uncle Doc how to melt lead for my pinewood derby racer, use a scroll saw and drill press, and work with wood to make storage chests and other things. Or, enjoying cookouts featuring Aunt Lettie Ann’s great home cooking at their house after they moved from Brunswick to Hortense. And above all, reveling in their open door hospitality.

    Uncle Doc died suddenly in 2015, and I was regrettably unable to return for his funeral. Before Aunt Lettie Ann died, she asked my dad to help me fly down and speak at her funeral as I had done for my Granny Ellis in 2012. The week before last, I said these words for her:

    Remembering Aunt Lettie Ann

    My dad tells me that my Aunt Lettie Ann had asked him while she was still lucid that I speak at her funeral. I’m saddened that it’s on this occasion that I am speaking with you today, but I consider it an honor to do this small thing for her.

    I wanted to begin by sharing with you a seemingly mundane yet meaningful dream that I had three weeks ago, the night after I learned Aunt Lettie Ann was back in the hospital. To be honest with you, I don’t put much truck in dream visitations or other forms of clairvoyance, but this dream’s timing and content unnerved me.

    The dream begins with me standing in the foyer of Aunt Lettie Ann’s fine house on Baker Hill Road. I see her descending the steep stairs slowly and carefully with her hands clutching the railing, but her face is beaming, and she says that she’s so glad to see me. After sharing a big hug, she tells me that I need to eat. Leaving me to sit at the extended dining room table with low sunlight entering the windows, she fusses in the kitchen to quickly prepare something for me. Then, while plying me with her delicious home cooking, she asks, how are you doing, how’s my sweet pea—that’s Y, my wife, what are you both up to? Answering her questions, I never got to ask how she was before I was suddenly awake.

    That dream lingered in my mind throughout her ordeal. I hoped that it was more like a good memory than a kind of goodbye. I can say that it brought back many happy memories of Aunt Lettie Ann showing her unconditional love and care, such as birthdays and Christmases, visits to see her when I was at home from school or work, and times that she hosted me when Uncle Doc, who you might have known as Bill or Wilbur or grandpa or dad—helped me on Scouting projects. And, it reminded me how she demonstrated her love and care in other ways, such as wanting to know how you are and what you’re up to—listening equally about your triumphs and failures, your good health and bad, and even your daily trifles—before sharing her own, in which she emphasized the positive over the negative and made light of her own troubles; needing to take care of you and make sure that you’re comfortable and well fed; giving deeply personal gifts—in fact, thinking to get Christmas presents for our cats Miao Miao and Mose who she didn’t even have a chance to meet; and above all else striving to make you feel loved and special. However, Y told me that it is more than that—the feeling of being loved by Aunt Lettie Ann remains with you even after you say goodbye and you carry her love with you wherever you might go next. I think she’s absolutely right.

    I share with you all a tremendous sadness that Aunt Lettie Ann is no longer here to love and care for us. I know we will all miss her great big hugs, her delicious cooking and get-togethers, and her looking out for us. However, I am deeply heartened to know that her love is still all around us, because we each carry it in our hearts and memories. I encourage you to cherish Aunt Lettie Ann’s love as a celebration of her life, an enduring remembrance of who she was, and a reminder of the kind of person who we should all strive to be.

  • Godspeed, Gary Stephen Thompson (1945-2012)

    Scanning from left to right in the adjacent picture from Christmastime 2008, you will see Bob Rainey, Mark Warbington, Paul Talamas, Gary Thompson, and me. This was the last time that I saw my friend Gary jovial and excited with life.

    On my way home to visit my family that year, I stopped through Atlanta to see the good friends that I made during my Mindspring and Georgia Tech undergraduate days. The five of us in the picture often met up at Mark’s house to tinker with computers (and technology in general), watch Red Green episodes (among many other things), and play Battlefield 1942 (with the Desert Combat patch).

    Since I had left Atlanta for graduate school at the University of Liverpool and Kent State University, I had not stayed in touch as much as I would have liked to. However, news has a strange way of finding its way to you through unexpected paths or random encounters. In Gary’s case, I knew that he continued with his annual participation in the Stone Mountain Highland Games, worked with another group of friends building an experimental kit airplane, and recently retired from General Electric where he was an highly experienced machinist.

    When I received a postdoc offer from Georgia Tech, I was excited about the prospect of catching up with my friends and hanging out again like we used to do at Mark’s. I realized that time and life had continued during the six years I was absent from Atlanta, but I did not expect the terrible event that coincided with my moving back to the area.

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