O Captain! My Captain!
I haven't been on the OTF for a very long time and it's strange that I chose last night of all nights to check it out. The old schoolers' posts bring a flood of memories back that make me truly laugh. Wellington Littlebrook was born out of a combination of writer's block at work, fans fighting about Mike Davis and Aruss.
I discovered the OTF after getting tired of the basketball boards and was a total lurker. I'd write my Wellington's World posts while at work envisioning the typical OTF guy being the Michael Bolton character from Office Space. The Aruss part comes in with the OTF Late Night Check of users online. You guys probably don't remember this about those Wellington posts but they only happened on weeknights, I'd sign in at 10PM Chicago time and posted at exactly 10:30PM. It gave the illusion that I was spending that time writing the post like a diary but in reality I was watching The Simpson's reruns on WFLD channel 32. Aruss was fascinated by the timing, the fact that I never replied to the replies and that he couldn't figure out if it was an existing OTFer.
He and I shared the exact same sense of humor. Y'all probably thought I was trolling the board with my posts but he and I were just making each other laugh. He and I were the perfect comedy team - he'd play the role of protector when everyone wanted me blacklisted and he'd be my board nemesis at other times. Basically, he got it.
As I changed user names and email addresses, to let him know it was really me I'd always address him as "Captain Dung Pile" in emails. One of my all-time favorite movie characters (and his) was Chet (Bill Paxton) in Weird Science and that just seemed like something he'd say. There are too many posts for me to relive that made us bust a gut. When I think of him I smile.
What I do know of him is that he loved three things - his family, IU and the OTF. It says a lot about his character that so many of us love a guy who was text on a screen to us. Over the years he had reached out to me to start posting again in ways that made me laugh
my buddy Killer was in town a couple weeks ago and at dinner out of the blue he asked me why I don't do anymore Rcab posts
I don't mourn the loss of Aruss; I cherish the time and attention I got from him.
Thanks to all of you old schoolers who have posted today. Seeing your names on my screen did me wonders.
Have a safe & happy holidays, everyone.
JAM!