I am also shocked and saddened. John surely holds the record for contributing the most to Mudcat, in terms of sheer volume, without ever insulting or offending anyone. I seem to recall that his chosen occupation had been in writing informational pamphlets, which seemed appropriate. I can think of no other way to account for his comfortable and effortless skill at explaining things.

It seemed to me that, in his kind and affable way, he had a compulsion to write. His postings were extensive and detailed, to the degree it was difficult to imagine how anyone could put that much effort into a posting on an internet forum. But he did.

I will also point out something that we all had perhaps noticed, but no one has yet mentioned, and that is that on the occasion that John didn't actually have an answer to the subject at hand, he would write about something that he did know about. You absolutely had to love him for that!

I haven't looked at the listing of his posts, but I reckon that that he wrote the equivalent of hundreds, or thousands of print pages in explanations, for our edification and amusement.

So John, I only hope you gained as much from writing them as we did from reading them. We love you, we'll miss you, and no one will ever take your place.