"Willi" wrote in message
...

I fished with George a couple times during that Clave and spent a bit of
time with him and his wife at their camper. He was more than kind to me
(and was a damned good fisherman).

This will probably stir some wise crack from someone, but this is the
image that comes to mind when I think about George at that Clave. If I
remember right, Danl came up with the beer.

http://www.crystalglen.net/Fishing/George.htm

Willi


I like that picture too. "Arrogant *******" is one of the ales from a local
(now going national) brewery called Stone Brewing. I would recommend any and
all of their ales, btw.

George was another example of the " not the same in person as they are on
the ng" phenomenon. I don't believe a single person who was at the Henry's
Fork Clave had a bad experience with George while at the clave. Whether or
not his on-line personality was influenced by bad health, I still believe
the relative safety (not sure that's the right word, but its close) of
sitting at one's keyboard causes one to post things that they would not say
in person.

I think another factor which comes into play is that at a clave, or other
meeting of roffians, if someone does or says something that might offend you
a little, if you hesitate to call attention to the offence the moment passes
and, even if it bugs you a little, it is more difficult to open the matter
later. The same is true of witty retorts and barbs; in person, if you don't
have a snappy comeback immediately at hand, within seconds the moment passes
and can't be adequately reconstructed such as to deliver said retort with
any appreciable impact. On line, however, minutes, hours or even days can
pass while one thinks of a response. Such is the nature of a thread's
lifespan vs. the usually much shorter lifespan of face to face conversation.
Yet another factor is the "all inclusive" conversation that is the ng. Here
everyone who reads the ng is part of every conversation. In person, i.e. at
a clave, one can only participate in a very few (for me, one) conversations
at one time. I think that most folks, given a choice of several
conversations in which to participate, will choose to converse on a subject
and with people that they like and therefore, don't have time to get
involved with the petty spats that make up a lot of the posts here.

Yet another contributor is the tendency for people to not engage other
people when one doesn't feel well, had a bad day, drank too much, etc..vs.
this online set of conversations that are always here and it doesn't take
much effort to interact here, no matter how bad you feel, how angry you
already are, or how much you've had to drink.... not that I've ever done
anything like that....



Danl