I have been pleased to have corresponded with Greg quite a bit over the years and I feel a better man to have been friends--albeit in a cyber sense, having never net the man in person-- with Greg. As many here have written, the man didn't suffer fools well and before Greg and I became friends there was some measure of nastiness between us. One evening in particular years ago we butted heads together on an exchange here on the forum, and it got fairly close to morphing into something kind of ugly. By the night's end before signing off I had a hunch he was just as half-shytfaced as I was and so I took a shot in the dark and asked for and got his number via PM. I called him and in a few minutes we were cracking up. That was the end of the nastiness betwixt us. From about that time forward he liked to refer to me as the 'inscrutable one'. I in turn called him 'El Jefe'.
I was on a small email cc list of his, and he would occasionally pass on something he thought was neat, something he was working on or was otherwise deemed by him to be interesting to the small group. I would sometimes do the same. Last year some time he wrote to the group and described having made a custom firearm component from scratch with high-end materials that he had been consigned to make for a customer on the word of the customer that payment for materials and labor would be passed along in full upon completion of the project. Well, that didn't happen and the customer essentially screwed Greg. Greg, naturally, was livid. He described what it was, and offered it to the group for what he had into it for materials only. Now, truth be told I had no use for the thing but being a guy who can appreciate finely made things, things put together by someone passionate about what they were doing and whose hands and skills literally brought it to life, well, I told him to box it up and where to send it, and told him that I'd get payment out to him directly, just as soon as I got his address. When he had received the payment, he could ship.
Well, it turns out the guy trusted me at my word, as the day after I sent payment the thing arrived at my home. This of course before the payment got to him. I was, and am thrilled at owning something so well made, and made literally from scratch. Every so often I'll remember I own it, who made it and where it was born. I'll got into my study, pull it out of the drawer it lives in and unwrap it, and fondle it's smoothness and marvel at the skill required to make sure a fine thing to such precise tolerances and strength. Greg contacted me a couple days later when my payment arrived, and thanked me far too many times for it. When I went to send the payment (no [bleep] checks, CASH ONLY if you please!
) I'd decided that giving a man money only for the material cost he had into it was dead wrong, and even though I never said anything about it when I agreed to buy it, had sent him about double what he had in it in terms of materials cost. Still, in hindsight I came out was ahead on that deal, as I have something that came from the hands and head and heart of a man I respected, enjoyed engaging with and learning something from virtually every time I interacted with him.
I'm sorry as hell Roger and I didn't get out to share a fire with you, but perhaps some day we will still, in another place. Give 'em hell, Jefe.
Your Inscrutable friend,
LNH
