How sad to see this humble blue collar man's death become a **** storm of pontificating bull****.

Ed is the only one that has noted the sadness of this man's passing.

I think of so many one/two man companies I work with that have service guys that are divorced, their kids are grown or moved away, and yet they still get up every day and do something useful without prompting. The could easily be Chris King on any given day.

I work about 40 to 50% of the time on homes and small commercial sites that have no one at home, no one to check in with, and I climb on roofs to do estimates, work on roofs for repairs, go high on ladders to examine repairs and take pictures for reports, etc. Sometimes I never see my clients, we just email and text. It was strange at first being a completely one man show that is responsible for every aspect of the work from estimating to completion. Doing that for a couple of decades though, you get used to it. I realize that I could be hurt (and have been) badly when there is no one to help. Poor Chris was doomed, and going to work that day, doing that job was his undoing.

Seeing this thread about what could have/should have/ought to have been makes me glad I don't work that much with others. The guy is dead for crying out loud. He was just making a living. And apparently (after reading a bit) he died the way he lived, he just went away. He didn't seem like the guy that expected much out of life from what I read, but as pointed out was there to help others.

If only you guys had been there to advise him and the people around him on how to act, what to do professionally, and how to interface with the world, letting him know of his shortcomings and personal responsibilities. With this kind of advice, he might have jumped off the damn roof.

It seems that these threads of bickering self righteousness get at least 10X the interest than any wood working thread do these days.

Robert