2010-AUG-27-0004Hrs
I am still in a bit a shock and truly saddened at the passing of our FRIEND "Bumbles". I was not in regular contact with him...Il ast saw him 2-3 years ago in TnT at his office but I have always considered him my friend. We always laughed together at the college especially after he embarassed me at his favourite game, table tennis. Erroll has indeed paid him a wonderful tribute.
I would like to extend my deepest and heartfelt condolences to his family.
As I thought of Earl on the weekend and chatted with Errol about him, I was drawn back to my earliest memory of him, when he treated us pioneers to his dramatic rendition of the poem "The Storm by Walter de la Mere"...hence his nick name "STORM". Do you guys remember this? Well here it is and I wish we could all do it together and laugh for one last time for and with our dear departed friend, Earl John, aka Strorm :..
Tom
Conrad Thomas
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"The Storm"
by Walter de la Mare
First there were two of us, then there were three of us,
Then there was one bird ..I hmore,
Four of us--wild white sea-birds,
Treading the ocean floor;
And the wind rose, and the sea rose,
To the angry billows? roar--
With one of us--two of us--three of us--four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.
Soon there were five of us, soon there were nine of us,
And lo! in a trice sixteen!
And the yeasty surf curdled over the sands,
The gaunt grey rocks between;
And the tempest raved, and the lightning?s fire
Struck blue on the spindrift hoar--
And on four of us--ay, and on four times four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.
And our sixteen waxed to thirty-two,
And they to past three score--
A wild, white welter of winnowing wings,
And ever more and more;
And the winds lulled, and the sea went down,
And the sun streamed out on high,
Gilding the pools and the spume and the spars
?Neath the vast blue deeps of the sky;
And the isles and the bright green headlands shone,
As they?d never shone before,
Mountains and valleys of silver cloud,
Wherein to swing, sweep, soar--
A host of screeching, scolding, scrabbling
Sea-birds on the shore--
A snowy, silent, sun-washed drift
Of sea-birds on the shore.
