RIP: David Harsh
Sep. 30th, 2008 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivanI've just read in Einblatt! that David Harsh died in Cleveland, GA on August 26th. I'd fallen out of touch with Dave since he moved to Georgia a few years back, pretty much at the same time I moved to Massachusetts. But for the 7 years or so before that, I was touched and honored by his friendship.
That friendship is one that came about because of my involvement with Minicon and Minn-stf. I think we met in 1997 when he came along to a fannish outing to a Saint Paul Saints baseball game that I put together as one of the outreach activities during trying times with Minicon. Or maybe he couldn't make the game, but introduced himself in the process of trying to come along to it. I think he was there, but it's been 11 years, and my email files only refer to the game in passing.
Dave holds the record for being the only person to ever give me a live toad...and a dead one. He brought both from the farm he and his wife, Marie, had in Wisconsin and gave them to me on my 43rd birthday.
I released the live toad into the garden and never saw it again. I still have the shellacked road-kill toad from his driveway. What can I say? It amuses me.
Dave also brought baby goats to Minicon one year, but that's a different story.... He was emphatically not involved with the sheep carcass that someone dumped in the bushes outside the hotel's executive tower on Easter Sunday that same year. Hearing about it (and that the hotel really hadn't liked finding it, much though they were glad that their staff did rather than mundane guests) dissuaded him from bringing a goat carcass the following year, as he'd been thinking about doing as the natural follow-on to the live baby goats. That year's goat party was going to be a Dead Goat Party.
He wasn't as weird as these stories suggest. He was one of the quiet ones...but a nice quiet one. During a highly politicized time when so many Minicon members either loved or hated what we were doing with the convention, Dave just wanted to meet and get to know a new friend. He was interested in what we were doing, and why -- reading the Minicon list is how he heard about the Saints game, and what prompted him to make the effort to meet and get to know me. He came to a couple of work sessions and parties at Toad Hall; we kept in intermittent contact by email, mostly regarding new jobs and a bit about life on the farm.
And now he's dead, dammit. Too young, clearly too young. I don't know his age, only that I'd guess he was somewhere between 45 and 55. I hope I learn the cause of death, not that it will make any difference to the reality of it.
My sympathy to all of David's friends and family. My thanks to him for the friendship, our conversations, and both of the toads.
That friendship is one that came about because of my involvement with Minicon and Minn-stf. I think we met in 1997 when he came along to a fannish outing to a Saint Paul Saints baseball game that I put together as one of the outreach activities during trying times with Minicon. Or maybe he couldn't make the game, but introduced himself in the process of trying to come along to it. I think he was there, but it's been 11 years, and my email files only refer to the game in passing.
Dave holds the record for being the only person to ever give me a live toad...and a dead one. He brought both from the farm he and his wife, Marie, had in Wisconsin and gave them to me on my 43rd birthday.
I released the live toad into the garden and never saw it again. I still have the shellacked road-kill toad from his driveway. What can I say? It amuses me.
Dave also brought baby goats to Minicon one year, but that's a different story.... He was emphatically not involved with the sheep carcass that someone dumped in the bushes outside the hotel's executive tower on Easter Sunday that same year. Hearing about it (and that the hotel really hadn't liked finding it, much though they were glad that their staff did rather than mundane guests) dissuaded him from bringing a goat carcass the following year, as he'd been thinking about doing as the natural follow-on to the live baby goats. That year's goat party was going to be a Dead Goat Party.
He wasn't as weird as these stories suggest. He was one of the quiet ones...but a nice quiet one. During a highly politicized time when so many Minicon members either loved or hated what we were doing with the convention, Dave just wanted to meet and get to know a new friend. He was interested in what we were doing, and why -- reading the Minicon list is how he heard about the Saints game, and what prompted him to make the effort to meet and get to know me. He came to a couple of work sessions and parties at Toad Hall; we kept in intermittent contact by email, mostly regarding new jobs and a bit about life on the farm.
And now he's dead, dammit. Too young, clearly too young. I don't know his age, only that I'd guess he was somewhere between 45 and 55. I hope I learn the cause of death, not that it will make any difference to the reality of it.
My sympathy to all of David's friends and family. My thanks to him for the friendship, our conversations, and both of the toads.
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Date: 2008-10-01 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 03:18 am (UTC)My sympathies as well.
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Date: 2008-10-01 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 06:22 am (UTC)I never even HEARD about the sheep carcase. Sheesh.
P.
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Date: 2008-10-01 11:44 pm (UTC)The passing of David Harsh
Date: 2008-10-24 07:26 pm (UTC)David died on Tuesday, August 26th as the result of a blood clot. He was 54. The weekend before, he injured his arm while working in his yard and sought medical treatment on Sunday. I saw David on Monday morning as he prepared to return to the medical center for additional tests. It was the last time I ever saw him. He passed at home the next day. His wife Marie remains on their farm in Dahlonega but I am unaware of her future plans.
Your accounts of David are spot on. We worked together and it wasn't too long ago that David and his wife strode into my office one morning, each with a baby goat in their arms. I was reviewing email that morning and I suddenly felt something cold and wet on my right ear. It was the goat in David's arms and how he crept in so quietly I'll never know.
As you said David was a quiet man but also a genuine and true character as well. Of the many people I've known in my life David was comfortable in his skin. He knew who he was and he was happy with it.
Thank you for remembering David. All of us who knew David miss him and wish he were here.
Re: The passing of David Harsh
Date: 2008-10-24 09:36 pm (UTC)Continued sympathy to you and to all who knew David.