Thank you George, you speak for many of us at this sad moment. Life is short, dont waste your's or others time with pointless BS. Go outside and enjoy the splendor of this fantastic creation where we are blessed to dwell. Fly up and catch your dreams before they slip away. Grubbsi
----- Original Message ----- From: "George Veni" <gv...@nckri.org> To: "texascavers" <texascavers@texascavers.com> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2018 11:41:45 PM Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Lee Jay in hospital Lee Jay and I never caved much together recreationally. We worked together for many years on countless karst consulting projects until I moved to Carlsbad 12 years ago. Everyone knows he is a talker, and more than once I had to tell him "Enough talking. We need to get to work." But I found that when I listened to him, he was amazingly well read and informed on a diverse range of topics. Lee Jay is a generalist who finds all that's in the world interesting. That is probably what makes him most valuable on a caving team. He has an eye for detail because he is fascinated by everything. He would produce great sketches and notes that were key to making good decisions on how to evaluate and manage a certain cave or karst feature. This attention to minutia allowed him to discover one of the tiniest and probably rarest spiders in Texas in a Williamson County cave. As a generalist, I could count on him for pretty much whatever was needed on our team. Once I asked him to bring his rifle for a karst evaluation. He thought I was joking but I assured him I serious. When we met in the field, we walked to an abandoned well that I needed to assess with my downhole camera, except that a rock was jammed in the well bore about 7 m down. Three shots from his rifle down the well shattered the rock and allowed us to look with the camera into a cave, which remains unexplored for lack of a humanly accessible entrance. Check out the attached photo. I find myself at the moment on the wrong side of the planet to go visit him in the hospital and tell him how much I appreciate his friendship and comradery. Perhaps more sad is that like with too many lost friends, we make time for final goodbyes at bedsides and funerals when it is too late, and not when they are alive and well to truly appreciate our words. The last time we saw each other, I knew I needed to visit with him more. It had been too long, but there was always "tomorrow." Lee Jay's final lesson to me and many us may be to remind us that sometimes there are no tomorrows, and to let those you care about know today how you feel. Thank you LJ, George ******************** George Veni, PhD Executive Director, National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) and President, International Union of Speleology (UIS) NCKRI address (primary) 400-1 Cascades Avenue Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220 USA Office: +575-887-5517 Mobile: +210-863-5919 Fax: +575-887-5523 gv...@nckri.org www.nckri.org UIS address Titov trg 2 Postojna, 6230, Slovenia www.uis-speleo.org -----Original Message----- From: Texascavers <texascavers-boun...@texascavers.com> On Behalf Of Justin Shaw Sent: Friday, November 23, 2018 18:33 To: CaveTex <texascavers@texascavers.com> Subject: [Texascavers] Lee Jay in hospital Lee Jay Graves has suffered a massive stroke with subarachnoid bleeding. His condition continues to deteriorate and he is not expected to recover. If you would like to visit him he is at the main St. David’s hospital on 32nd St. here in Austin. He is on the 5th floor, room 555. Nurses recommend coming tonight or early tomorrow. There are no restrictions on visiting hours. Though he seems unresponsive, the sense of hearing is often the last to go. His family is aware, and his sisters are in route and expected to arrive tonight or early tomorrow morning. If you would like details, I’m willing to talk on the phone. 512-593-2283 With Love, Justin (apologies for such a heavy post, however when you’ve touched as many lives as LJ did, there’s too many people who’ll want to be in the loop for me to even think of everyone, much less directly contact everyone) _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers