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GORDON VICKERS

#1
Dear friends,

Our community has lost one of its own recently early on the morning of Saturday, Feb 13 2021 . There wasn’t one of us who had anything but the deepest respect and admiration for our good friend Gordon Vickers. I haven’t met many people who have had the effect on me that Gordon did.

About five years ago or so I was speaking with my mother’s friend that she had taught school with many years ago in Alberta. I happened to mention my on-line gaming buddy who I considered a good friend – she asked me how one could consider someone they’d never met a “good friend”. To the uninitiated this seems like a rational or reasonable question. It isn’t. I explained that I’d been speaking in a voice channel with this person since 2005. After that amount of time you get a pretty good handle on who someone really is. The time since that conversation has only strengthened my convictions about Gordon.

When our group’s good friend Randy Williams died Feb. 27, 2016 I felt compelled to write something complimentary and endearing about him. Around three or four years ago Gordon brought this up with me and he expressed respect and complimented me on my writing and what I had written, and said that when the time came he would appreciate my doing something similar for him. I do so now humbly honoured, but there is no cheer, or joy – just a sombre and respectful acknowledgement of a person I was so lucky to get to know better, the last 7 years at least. I was very close to Randy, but I became much closer to Gordon, and am finding this affirmation an emotionally very difficult thing to do.

As we all know Gordon had been stricken with a debilitating illness and he did his best to stave off the effects as long as he could. He put in an heroic effort to mitigate the outcome, and did so with bravery and cheer. Would that I could do the same.

Music plays such a large part of all of our lives and we all find something from someone that can mean different things to different people. I have been a big fan of Jethro Tull from the first time I heard them. They have a song called “We Used to Know” whose lyrics I have come to see as being very profound and fitting to include here.

Whenever I get to feel this way
Hard to find new words to say
I think about the bad old days
We used to know

Nights of winter turn me cold
Fears of dying, getting old
We ran the race, the race was won
By running slowly

Could be soon we'll cease to sound
Slowly upstairs, faster down
Then to revisit stony grounds
We used to know

Remembering mornings, shillings spent
Made no sense to leave the bed
The bad old days, they came and went
Giving way to fruitful years

[Guitar solo]

Saving up the birds in hand
While in the bush the others land
Take what we can before the man
Says it's time to go

Each to his own way, I'll go mine
Best of luck with what you find
But for your own sake remember times
We used to know



“We ran the race, the race was won, by running slowly”. Gordon ran the race a little faster than any of us wished that he had.
I’m broken-hearted because I’ve lost such a good friend. A person I was fortunate enough to have gotten to know as well as I did over the years. I’m not alone. All my other friends who knew Gordon can attest to this as well, I know. We know his family feels this way because they knew him intimately – we knew him from afar. Such was his influence, and personality, that we have been severely impacted too.

Gordon was gifted with a very high intellect. Like most of the intellectually gifted I’ve met he was an extraordinarily sensitive man. Another of my best friends, Murray, was a fan of the singer Kate Bush, one of the very best singer/songwriters to ever come along, and one of his favourite songs was “The Man With The Child In His Eyes”. Murray was one of the toughest men I ever met and when he introduced me to this song, it opened my eyes to something not normally spoken about by men. Gordon was not childish in any sense of the word, but he never lost his sense of playfulness. The brightest people I’ve ever met have shared this trait – this kind of sensitivity, almost to a person. It is truly a loss when we lose friends of this calibre. They help to keep us grounded and mindful.

Gordon possessed all of the ideals that we’re supposed to aspire to and he was honest and trustworthy. Gordon came to visit me in June of 2017, the first of my online friends to ever do so. I would have been entirely confident to have given him the keys to my home, without a second thought, to get in if I wasn’t there to let him in.

Gordon served six years in the US Navy where his skills landed him a seat on a Nuclear Missile Submarine. He served honourably and admirably and he and his cohorts kept us all safe doing what they did. We never had to deal with any nightmare scenarios because of people like Gordon who were brave enough to do what needed to be done. He was tasked with top secret, classified information that he never dishonoured. He told me a few things about his time on the boat, but never once did he ever divulge anything classified. He remained true to his word to the very end.

We are all lesser people now that we have lost this good person. Like all the others who knew Gordon, we all feel exactly the same way. We were all so very lucky to have had him a part of our lives. We miss you Gordon.

Love, and sincerity, Scott Cooley, Feb. 21, 2021
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#2
I'm sorry to hear about this... RIP Gordon.
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#3
Vizard, thank you for the posting!

GG Gordon, good game.
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#4
Well said he will be missed
[Image: delete3kobk.png]
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#5
(08-15-2021, 01:57 AM)DeLeTe3 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well said he will be missed

(02-14-2021, 11:30 PM)DeLeTe3 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[Image: rip.gif]
[Image: delete3kobk.png]
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#6
Sorry to hear guys
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