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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I learned today that my friend Ron died in January. He was 59.
Ron used to post here. I'm not sure what to say...
I met him two or three times, in Stamford Connecticut, where I used to go on business. We spent some evenings together. He was a self effacing man, kind, gentle, a firm friend. He lived for classical music, something he was an acknowledged authority on. As happens over time our friendship remained strong, but our communication dwindled. Ron was a gay man who was so afraid of being out that he lived and died without companionship, save for loving parents who died before him.
Once, when he and I met up, he drove me to meet another friend. After that trip I had always expected a car wreck to carry Ron off, not illness. Ron is the only person I know who, while concentrating on the job of driving his car, left the freeway by accident and rejoined it at the same junction, looking as if this was a perfectly normal thing to have done.
When I heard, this morning, of his death I half expected him to rejoin the freeway of life by this evening.
He'd have liked that thought.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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kiwi
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Likes it here |
Location: New Zealand
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 317
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Sorry, timmy. It comes to us all, sooner or later, but it's never easy.
Just be thankful for the good memories i guess - they're the best any of us are going to leave behind.
cheers
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"kiwi wrote on Thu, 05 March 2015 23:08"Sorry, timmy. It comes to us all, sooner or later, but it's never easy.
Just be thankful for the good memories i guess - they're the best any of us are going to leave behind.
cheers
--
Many people have good memories of The Great Rondini. He was known to a wide audience for his classical music expertise, and much appreciated by them. Of course that was not his stage name! And yet it suited him, principally because of the mild irony in it. And he loved it.
He was a great friend of our Grasshopper, too, and of one of our authors, Andy, who allowed him to visit and meet up once. Andy was playing in some sort of concert.
I was given the news of his death by a young man who also enjoyed Ron's friendship, and who had shared meals and evenings with him, a young man whose conversations with Ron had been a help as he struggled with Don't Ask Don't Tell, before leaving the military to pursue another career path.
I realised today that I have known Ron for almost 20 years.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Posted this evening on his Facebook page:
>Ron
I am so sorry to have learned this evening of your passing. Although we had not spoken in quite a long while I tuned-in to your NPR evening show just to hear the sound of your voice, knowing that as sure as God made little green apples and shooting sherry that you would be there to cheer me up when I needed it the most. You were a rock that guided me through the worst moments in my then recent life helping to overcome fears that I had about my own mortality and passage were I not to survive open-heart surgery that I was about to undergo. God bless you fella, you will be sorely missed by those of us that truly loved you.<
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I this morning contacted the seventeen (17) people, other than myself, categorized as "Friends" on Ron's Facebook page to advise them of his passing, hoping that one of them will be able to shed some light on this.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"The Gay Deceiver wrote on Sat, 07 March 2015 16:56"I this morning contacted the seventeen (17) people, other than myself, categorized as "Friends" on Ron's Facebook page to advise them of his passing, hoping that one of them will be able to shed some light on this.
--
Ron had been a diabetes sufferer for some years. he went into hospital for a toe infection that he had allowed to linger and ended up with an amputated foot. But that was a couple of years back and was, I thought, the most important piece of ill health. Regrettably he had no medical insurance, so the bill, an enormous bill, beset him.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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This I had not known; but, then again he was a very private man, and not prone to share this sort of stuff with all and sundry... only those he was closest to. Had he told me initially about the surgery, I might have been able to arrange something; he knew I had helped Kevin some while back if you remember. Marc created quite a stir at the time because of it; perhaps that may explain why he remained silent on that particular topic.
I am going to so miss this man.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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Ron would not, I think, have accepted help. Rather, he would have given you his last penny had he seen you in need, and gone hungry himself.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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He was.
Polite, kind, gentle, self-effacing, generous to a fault, warm, funny and resolute only begin to scratch the surface of the man he had been.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I was reminded of this thread last night when someone Ron mentored in real life emailed me out of the blue.
What saddens me is that two others who posted in the thread have also died, and that I am not sure of the third's status.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Geron Kees
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 151
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I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of your friend, Tim, even all these years later. It sounds like you remember him fondly. I'm sure Ron would have loved these thoughts about him.
I hope this new road he is on yields some better destination than the place he left from.
[Updated on: Sat, 28 October 2023 02:28] |
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