On 4 Jun 2004 11:46:11 -0700, (Patrick Olguin)
wrote:

Unisaw A100 wrote in message news:
After pretty much suffering a year from hell he passed away
in February 2002.


i will not snip this


It was a very bad year.

This was a deep, personal loss. I purposely stayed out of the several
threads of tribute to him a couple years ago. To join in at that time
seemed to me, too personal or potentially cheapening a relationship
that could be described as nothing less than brotherly. Maybe I just
was reluctant about getting in touch with that deep pain (and also
lose out on the cathartic gift therein) that's released when you write
about someone you've lost and let it go.

I miss Paully Rad. Paul T. Radovanic. I called him Paul Rayovac,
just to be a PITA sometimes. Truly this was a guy with a heart of
gold, a smartassy sense of humor, an admirable intuitive creative soul
if there ever was one. OTOH, he was an Irish/Croat, so God help you
if you ****ed him off. And if ya did, you more than likely deserved
it. But more than anything, Paul was a sensitive problem solver.
Yeah, it sounds cliche', but he loved helping people and he was good
at it.

He should have written a book - Finishing For Dummies - not because he
couldn't have tackled something more technical, but he had a way of
dispelling the voodoo of wood finishing that appealed to the
"Everyman," of woodworking. Paul was as brilliant a student (I
remember him evolving from a first-time plane owner to happy
Neanderdorker) as a teacher. There isn't enough bandwidth to describe
how many times he took a clueless newby polyurinator by the hand and
led him to shellac, Behlen's rock hard table top varnish, Valspar or
anything else he had experience in and believed in.

And for those of us who were lucky enough to know him well - I called
him my, "Udder Brudder Paul," - he had the same compassionate, caring,
yet no bull**** approach to friendship. We spoke weekly, and on one
auspicious occasion, he invented a business trip to come to L.A.,
basically just to see how the hell I was doing. I think the real
reason was that he wanted to have a go at the vaunted #8 in my shop.
We hung out like a coupla 10-year olds with our insect collections
(only with much larger bills).

Though it was way too short, I am grateful for the time Paul had with
us here on this planet. Who am I kidding? He's still there in my
shop, everytime I put a brush in the shellac and make it land and take
off like an airplane, every time I work towards an edge, every time I
pick up his old MF #18C (corrugated Millers Falls fore plance, Jeff)
and put it to work.

The pain of separation from someone like a brother will always be
there. Ya don't get over it - you get by. But it's nothing compared
to the joy in knowing you've literally been touched by wooddorking
angel.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Good-bye Paul. I'm doing ok.

Humbly submitted,
O'Deen


He was one of the best, O'Deen - and you are one of the best.



Regards,

Tom.

Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker, ret.
tjwatson1atcomcastdotnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/