I was very upset over the weekend to hear that my old bloggin' buddy, Calvin Heighton, had sadly passed away. Cal was, of course, the long-time curator of Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool, a monumental storehouse of pop culture goodness, featuring Cal's pithy observations and deep, abiding interests in dozens of esoteric subjects. Cal was a man who had opinions and arguments to spare - sometimes seemingly curmudgeonly and irascible, but with a heart as wide as the Canadian wilderness beneath the crusty ( and luxuriously bearded ) surface. The Cave of Cool was a constant source of entertainment and certainly one of my early inspirations in the world of blogging. He was also a great friend to this humble blog and was always very encouraging to my feeble efforts in this field.
Sadly, about a year ago, the man who had seemed to be permanently posting something somewhere on the internet, dropped off the radar. The longer his silence continued, the more people became concerned. Although Cal had many, many friends in the virtual world, his own life was apparently a lonely one, and the sad passing of his mother must have only made things worse. We all feared the worst, enquiries were made, but The Cave of Cool appeared to have gone silent.
A few days ago, fellow blogger and Cal's comrade in their Balloon Juice podcast, MD Jackson, told us the sad news that Cal had passed away after a battle with the dreaded cancer. Mike said he'd reached out to the staff in the hospice where Cal spent his last weeks, and they'd passed on the well wishes and love from his legions of followers and admirers. We can only hope this gave him some comfort at the end. There's also a lovely obituary to Cal by fellow blogger Tim Knight here
So, farewell big man, farewell my Canadian brother - keep fighting the good fight in Valhalla!
And I'll finish with some words from the great man himself:
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