[Trysalot]

This piece has been written generally for the ACBL players on BBO and anyone else who knew "Ahab" here and specifically for the more than 200 people on his friends list to whom I am sending bbomail telling them my sad news and directing them here.

I'm sorry to tell you that Greg Parker, great virtual friend and mentor to me and many others here (and a favorite real life phone chat friend of mine) died in his sleep in the wee hours of last Sunday morning, December 7, 2008, due to apparent heart failure. In retrospect it seems very fitting that a Viet Nam veteran died on the day our country was honoring our armed forces who lost their lives, were wounded, or survived intact the attack on Pearl Harbor to fight the many battles of World War II.

Greg was an ACBL TD here before his health issues began overwhelming him last
spring, but I've forgotten his number. (ACBL-13?, ACBL-16?) As a player here,
he was known as Ahab. On the defunct E-Bridge site, he was TD Ahab and
player Z1eagle. His death at age 63 has taken him from us far too soon. The facts of his life that I am sharing here were given to me by the special lady in his life with whom I have had several telephone conversations in the past couple of days. She is not a bridge player, so that stuff is from me.

Greg was born on March 5, 1945, spent his childhood in Quincy, Washington, lived
there and in other Washington cities as a young adult, and was a resident of
Spokane, Washington the last few decades of his life. He served in the U.S. Navy 1964-1968 on a ship stationed off the coast of Viet Nam and periods of time performing assignments on shore. He told me he was exposed to Agent Orange which he and some of his doctors blamed for his later health problems but were not able to prove to the U.S. government because the records show him attached to the ship without any mention of land duty. When he returned home, he entered college and discovered the game of bridge there.

Our online bridge friend was a man for all seasons who had multiple and very varied careers during his lifetime that few here knew anything about. He was a brilliant student, which led to him being a brilliant bridge player, earning a Master's degree in Economics and needing only to research and write his doctorate thesis to receive his Ph.D.when he left school to earn a living to support a family. At various times in his life, he drove race cars, played professional backgammon, owned and operated a convenience store more than once, and was an automobile salesman. But duplicate bridge was his passion; he honed his skills, became a world class player, and from sometime in the 1970s until the mid-1990s when his health problems began, he was a bridge pro traveling the tournament circuits with his clients.

When Greg was scheduled last July to have part of his right arm amputated to stop
an antibiotic resistant infection from spreading further, he had me access his
account and send a message to all of the several hundred people on his
friends list. Very few knew before I told those who specifically asked for more
information that his last months here as a TD this always cheerful man
was on dialysis three times a week due to kidney failure caused by his diabetes and that his eyesight was becoming increasingly blurry despite having had surgery on both of them. The eye surgeries were what made him stop TD'ing and, when he eventually came back, it was as a player only, and that stopped after the amputation in July until very recently he came on occasionally for short periods. Nor did more than the few who also chatted voice with him and a couple I told know that over time he had lost so much lower body strength that he was in a wheelchair weeks before the amputation and that before then he was no longer able to tolerate a full four hour session of dialysis and periodically had to be hospitalized to rid his body of the toxins gradually on a continual low level dialysis over several days.

After the amputation he could not live independently with part-time home health
care and was discharged to a local veterans facility as his new permanent home. So, while his death was a shock to me as I'm sure it is for you, I guess I should have expected it because I know that kidney failure and other medical issues combined with high dosages of pain medications puts a lot of stress on other organs, especially the heart. At the time he died, he had not turned on the computer for over a week because of pain in his good arm from the strain of moving his wheelchair with it, but he was expecting to soon have a power wheelchair assigned to him. So we both believed that he would soon be back to regularly doing email and playing online bridge regularly with the assist of the voice recognition software gift sent to him by a friend here and magnfiying glasses he planned to get to improve his blurry vision. To the end, Greg maintained a positive attitude about playing the hand dealt him. He kept telling me that he was going to live the rest of his life to the fullest and for him that now meant getting to spend most of his waking hours playing bridge with his friends here.

No matter how bad he felt, whenever he was online as a player the past eight or
nine months, Greg strove to give his partner as good a game as possible.
Many partners didn't know he was ill, most of those who did had no idea of the
seriousness of his medical issues. But the few who knew were aware that Greg
was playing with a 110% effort and admired him for it. So I hope his courage in
dealing with adversity, his cheerful attitude, and his high ethical standards as
a bridge player and formerly as a TD will be remembered as much as his expertise in playing the game.

Greg was cremated on December 11, 2008. His ashes will be scattered by the family next spring or summer in a peaceful meadow near Spokane that he loved to visit. He is survived by (1) Marilyn Davis, his "significant other" of 18 years, whose friendship began in childhood and was renewed decades later after each was married to and divorced from another, (2) his ex-wife, Iva Parker, (3) his brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Sandy Parker, and their sons, (4) his son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Suzanne Parker, and the several step-grandchildren she gave him by marrying Paul, (5) his daughter, Elisa Parker, and (6) various aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Sympathy cards or notes may be sent to Marilyn Davis 704 South Ash Street, Spokane, WA 99204 who will share them with the family as soon as possible. She will be monitoring Greg's cell phone until the end of December when it will be disconnected. Voicemail messages will be passed on to his family and calls will be returned by Marilyn but not always immediately because she is an R.N. and works crazy hours. That number is 509-954-1827 (and still has Greg's voice saying to leave a message), and she asks that you give yours slowly and clearly as she has already been unable to return a few calls because the number could not be heard completely.

I last spoke with Greg the Thursday night before he died. He was in good spirits but tired from an incomplete dialysis session. I know of two other players who had phone chats with him on Friday morning, probably there are others who spoke with him during his last few days, and of course none of us had any idea that we were talking with him for the last time. I am very glad I ended mine by telling him as I so often did how much I enjoyed his friendship and cared about him although we never met face to face.

Rest in peace, Greg. You will not be forgotten by us whose lives you touched.

[tulip eb]

He was ACBL_16. Our relationship started in antipathy and then built up to understanding and respect from both sides.

He was a man with many facets and we shared a love of the Western United States. One of our last joint endeavors was to save the sinking E-Bridge site - sometimes talking strategies on the phone for hours. We once carried on a conversation that lasted the length of his directing a game at that site from pre-game to final scoring. In the past year, he became one of my favorite partners.

Also at E-Bridge; a game was waiting for a director who had overslept! People became restless and tired of waiting and on the verge of leaving the playing room. I called him on his phone and he immediately took over and directed while awakening from a deep sleep.

May the westerly winds waft you gently to peaceful seas and grand slams, Oh, Captain, my Captain!.

Rosa Jeannette

[H_KARLUK]

This is Hamdi Karluk. Speaking from Turkiye, Izmir city. Male, 53 years old. I thank trysalot for informed me about sad death of a BRAVE and HONEST spirit.
It was 1998. I first met r.i.p. Gene Marshall of Cravensline, California USA. He said impressed with my style and invited me to a tournament on OKB. We won. After a week Gene sent me a gift of a pair of RayBan sunglasses from him. I was shocked that he reached me. I gifted back with a humble special made in sweden red bidding boxes for him and his partner r.i.p. Greg Parker. Gene Marshall called me about 3 30am my time on my cell phone to thank me/I insisted it would be expensive, he said no big deal, it is worth it. Later he introduced me to FoxyLady on OKB who was his neighbor in sunny California. He also introduced me to Carlo from Italy (Doria) on BBo. This became our friendly bandit group. I was like their mad scientist son.

Hearing about Greg made me think again about Gene. They are both missed. Thanks Patsy-"fifee" on OKB/BBo for informed me about the loss of Gene.

Our small bandit group started to play matches for fun. Soon turned on competitive. Greg was WABBIT ("rueful rabbit" posted on his profile..lol) Gene's p. The first time Gene introduced him with me on OKB in th mid of 1998. They were travelling to many cities by plane to play bridge.
To me Greg was a very good data bank. I learned that he was consistent, and everything had a firm meaning with him. He was a matured and dynamic bridge player. As an opp was always kind.

I've a fiancee who lives in SC. We are awaiting a visa to get married in the states...hopefully soon. I hope the good lord gives me a small chance to gift flowers on Greg's and Gene's graves.

Sleep gently Greg Parker and Gene Marshall. I respect your nice spirits. Amen.

http://www.eons.com/...profile/z1eagle[/IMG]
http://www.makbridge...com/Svetsko.htm (wabbit=gene&z1eagle=greg)
WBF Code: USA&500994 Greg Parker

[Trysalot]

Thank you so much, Hamdi Karluk, for sharing these stories of Greg which are from the time before I knew him. It wasn't until spring of 2004 that I finally got a computer with internet capability and began playing online bridge at E-Bridge and later also BBO. Greg was the E-Bridge TD who directed the first ACBL tournament I played there and was very patient in answering the questions I sent him by chat every time I got confused about how to do things like alert and claim or access the score record of the previous rounds. After that we chatted often online and developed our friendship. About a year later we got tired of typing so much and exchanged telephone numbers. LOL

FYI and everybody else's who read this thread, instead of trying to read them to Marilyn by phone, I am going to copy the messages to a text file and mail them to her next week so Greg's family can enjoy them.

[Trysalot]

Anybody who wants to see a good photo of Greg should click on the first link at the end of Hamdi Karluk's post.