Notes for Uncle Ho’s Polishing
By Godsil
October 24, 2007
The internet provided a vital resource for my healing from a host of traumas that almost did me in, literally.
In 1998 Judy Wines, the mother of my three children Megan, Joseph, and Bridie, returned to God, as did my best buddy, Ted Seaver, about half year later, soon followed by one of my only two brothers-in-law Cliff Kvern (I have no biological brothers).
I had recently survived a six-year $2,500,000 law suit (I won but was sorely battered). My 25-year-old roofing company, Community Roofing, Inc. was profoundly challenged in the transition from a two-owner hands-on small shop into a one owner (me) excessively-expanding company looking for a new generation of leadership.
My second try for a Ph.D. was stalled by my complete incapacity to listen to lectures by political science professors neither sufficiently political nor scientific. There is more to this tangle than I care to recount, other than to summarize my state at the edge of despair and utterly disinterested in face-to-face encounters with my fellow humans whose immediate presence would require sharing a seven-year “job journey” I did not have the energy for recounting.
But this was the dawn of my “internet organizing career!” When Jenny showed me how to do group e-mails, I realized that the internet could provide me with the resources I needed both to heal and to advance many of my lifetime visions. While I was incapable of engaging my friends and fellow citizens in real world places, I soon realized that I could partner with many, have fun, and accomplish much, in organizing projects that sheltered me from too much immediacy my grief could not bear.