Thursday, August 19, 2010

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

Hope you don't mind if I wander off-topic for a bit.

You've probably never heard the name Marc Borland. He wrote a few different blogs, most prominent among them one called Full Throttle, which covered most everything imaginable connected to auto racing. He was a true pioneer, starting his blog in 2002 at a time when blogging in general was a generally unknown quantity to the world at large. Sports blogging? Unheard of. Yet there was Marc, posting away about not only sports, but a sport many don't so much as consider to be one.

Marc was a pure blogger. He was a individualistic man of singular vision. Full Throttle was his domain, a place from which he would comment at length on the individuals and events that together formed the sport he loved. Marc was a walking encyclopedia of racing knowledge, which he would both generously share and bash over the head of anyone who expressed opinions contrary to his own. Woe unto any who dared argue with him without first arming themselves to the teeth with knowledge. Marc would chop the ill-informed down without a shred of mercy. Sometimes it came off as arrogance. But it never was that. It was passion in action.

Marc was a Navy man, who after serving his country settled in the Philippines where he married and raised a family. If you ever wanted to turn the self-professed crusty curmudgeon into a bag of mush, a simple inquiry about his two daughters would do the trick. Marc ofttimes was thought of as being fierce. In fact, he was fiercely loyal to those who saw past the gruffness into the thoughtful, caring man that was underneath a hardened surface.

Marc passed away earlier this month. It took several days for word to reach those of us who knew him online. When it did...

There are certain fellowships for which membership is available only to participants. We're familiar with the brotherhoods of cops and firefighters. Bloggers who center around the same theme also know this fellowship, especially if our chosen topic is anything but fashionable. We reach past the mechanics of what we write about into the whys of our subject matter. Which leads to who we are and how this leads to our writing. Which leads to bonds of friendship that, while seldom spoken, are always present. Yes, we still argue about things. But that disappears in a heartbeat as we genuinely care about, and for, the people behind the opinions.

It's hard to accept that Marc is gone. Yet there it is.

Farewell, blogging buddy.

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