About Lugnut -- Patrick Malone

Pat,
Even though I e-mailed you privately today, in response to your generous, unsolicited sharing of thoughts about another thread, in which I had asked a question,I want to be part of this thread. To say that this thread has had a shuddering, shattering and, I would venture, absolutely unforgettable impact on the members of this group, is a gross understatement; reading it is a lesson in hope for mankind, exemplified and led by your stark, ruthlessly honest and searing love for life and its finest values. You inspire us and I only wish you well. "Dum spiro, spero" (while there's life, there's hope) is obviously your mantra and I, together with the friends who know you personally, hope and pray that we can face these trials together for years to come.

Pat,
I'm glad the news today was better. To answer your question, there are 15 Springboks, who are the South African national rugby team. Rugby is a fiery passion in South Africa, rivaled only in Wales and New Zealand. When the Springboks beat the All Blacks (NZ rugby team) at rugby, it is like Miracle on Ice all over again, each time. Every South African who is a toddler, dreams of being a Springbok. I wasn't one, but can pretend! - I could bore this thread forever about the exploits of the Springbok rugby players, but won't. But that is where the name comes from. You can rightfully take a warm glow from the effect your thread has had on all of us - I'm even thinking of sending it to my rugby team so they can take inspiration from you and smoke the All Blacks. See, you have potentially even influenced thick-skulled rugby players!!That is how powerful and all-embracing your thread is.

Pat,
Sometimes words are inadequate. I think you get the sense of what the Audiogon community feels for you and wishes for you. It's strange, but the impact your thread has had is quite enormous. I think my wife summarized it this weekend, when a non-audio couple whom we haven't seen for a year, asked me how I spend my "non-working" time, since I told them I'm too busy to socialize. She said "He used to spend all his time reading about Audio equipment on A'gon, now he just wants to know how Lugnut is doing". Like many of the other contributors on this thread, I have never personally met you, but your honesty and fortitude has touched all our lives. And our perspectives on what's important.

We're not watching an impending train wreck -that's sudden, catastrophic, uncontrolled mayhem. If you have a mechanical simile, I think it is the USS Missouri - icon of the US Navy - retired and re-vamped, re-armed, re-painted and now part of US History at Pearl Harbour. Fought 3 wars - WW II, Korea, Gulf War and never gave up. Kept re-surfacing..... so now part of our lore. No, Pat, you're not a trainwreck.

Glad you are feeling better, Pat. One could actually feel the collective sigh of relief throughout Audiogon.... Enjoy your sister's visit.
Sota Cosmos should be here next week - apparently the motor alignment was so smashed in transport that there was no way, Kirk said, that I could have fixed it.........even with the help you so graciously offered.

Pat,
Go to: rugby365.com, look under "Features" at "A True Springbok Supporter" and watch the video. Not only do I guarantee that it will make you smile, but there is also a message in it for you. You will understand when you've seen it. Go do it now..........
Hope your weekend was good.

Happy birthday, Pat.

Pat,
My reading of the Springbok video is that miracles happen. Unlikely, inconceivable ones, like the guy rescuing the Springbok. That's what I wanted you to see. The All Blacks are called that because they dress all in black - that's all. No racial connotation.

Pat,
Sorry I haven't posted for a while, but that is not a reflection of lack of interest, as I read every one of your posts and think of you and your and your family's ordeal daily. The impact your posts, reflective of an amazing grace under the heaviest fire imaginable, is an inspiration to the rest of us and I assure you that the "kind words" are inadequate and understated. I don't think you have any idea of the undying and indelible impression your fight has made on us. You and yours are in my thoughts and best wishes.
Denis

Pat,
I read your detailed post about what your body, and, in a sort of almost detached, absolutely rivetingly honest way, you described what your mind and soul are going through.......I did a double take, shook my head and conclude that, in my entire life, I have never witnessed or been privy to such a display of 1)total honesty in the face of almost indescribable discomfort and total realization of the facts, unobscured, unfiltered and unsmeared or filtered from your full consciousness 2) total lack of self-pity, 3) preservation of your appreciation of what's important to you right up to the end, but 4) most starkly, undisguised and screaming loudly at us all is this message that hangs out there, as if suspended for all to see, hear and touch:

I, Lugnut, am near the end of the road, but I will bare it all and live what's left with all of you, because you all may benefit from what I'm telling you and feeling and thinking. It may change your (ours, that is) way of dealing with life, death, pleasures, disappointments and put them all in a perspective that reading your epic journey will cement in a different, shuddering way.

In my book you stand alone in my encounters of persistent and unflinching pure-bloooded guts and fiber for this last hugely selfless and, costly, to your energy and resources, stand to drum into us the real and relative values of life's hills, valleys, cliffs, volcanoes and peaks, which you articulate to us as you coast them daily. The biggest shock - not in a sense that I am surprised that it is you who is the author - rather than the fact that anybody, not yet sainted or deified - can have this strength and will to make a statement of this magnitude.......this blows me away.

May your final thoughts and solace be not that you have guided us, albeit true, but that you have left a legacy for Barb and your gene pool that any other Medal of Honor winner, will look down at you, smile and say, "Yeah, he is one of us..........." This legacy to your family will be peerless, matchless and priceless to them in their years ahead, not to mention the genes giving them the same Right Stuff to achieve their own amazing feats of living that their forebear did. That is your royal prize, the biggest of them all. That will be the thought and satisfaction that will finally allow you to go in real peace............

I am sorry, deeply, that I didn't ever meet you, but believe you me, we know you. And we are infintely richer for it.

Thanks, Pat.

My deepest sympathy to all of Pat's family. This has been a remarkable journey, not only for Pat and his grieving family, but for all of us who have learned so much from him. I can only hope that the support and love he has received and will continue to receive is a source of some comfort to Barb and Amanda.

Denis