A couple of weeks ago over dinner in the dining room at Franke, the residential community where we both live, Ed asked me to help him set up a wireless system in his apartment so he could use his Nook to download books he wanted to read. In a phone call a day or so later I recommended he buy a wireless router and we would hook it up. We talked again last week and he said he was ready to do the job. I went to his apartment where we chatted as he showed me the office he had created in a second bedroom. It held his books and desk and computer. It was a comfortable room and he said it gave him a lot of pleasure. We looked at the cable connection sitting on the floor and the wire running around the baseboard of two walls and speculated how it might be raised up and moved even closer to the computer. After a few minutes I asked him for the router and he seemed surprised. Then he realized he was to have purchased one. He went to a day-planner and found the note to himself and said he had completely skipped over it.
We laughed a bit and talked a little more. He apologized for his mistake and I told him to forget it. I said it was a pleasure seeing his place and talking. We made plans to get together again in a couple of days.
Ed told me about his weekly calls via Skype with a son who is working in New Zealand. He was proud of this accomplishment using some of the latest free technology. Details of Ed's death and arrangements have not been publicized. I am sure contact is being made with the son to include his wishes.
The community has lost a good member. We will remember him fondly.
