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Thursday, February 02, 2023

Remembering Robert Douglas "Doug" Badger of Long Beach, California

March 30, 1951 - January 16, 2023

Doug Badger, devoted dad, husband, friend, mentor, shipmate, and sharer of knowledge, "crossed the bar" on January 16, 2023. I was on the phone speaking with a vendor out in California yesterday. I brought up Doug in the conversation. The vendor said "I guess you haven't heard". Right then my heart sank and I wept.

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
—Tryon Edwards

I guess it was around 1996 when I first contacted Doug. We traded a few old sea stories and it was like I'd known him all my life. I'm sure a lot of other people got the same impression. Over the next 25 years or so I'd ring up Doug on occasion to see if he could help me with some material, or just to shoot the breeze with him. But every single time, without fail,  I'd end up picking his brain. Because he knew his business. And that is a fact. I made a trip out to see Doug once. I'm glad I got to meet him, thank him, and shake his hand.

The best conduct a man can adopt is that which gains him the esteem of others without depriving him of his own.
—The Talmud

Today my thoughts are with Doug's family. Celebrate his life. The last time I spoke with Doug he was happy and well, and loving life and family. That's how I knew Doug, and that's how I will always remember him.

Character gives splendor to youth and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rest In Peace, Doug.

Dave

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The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.

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Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character