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  hat do you say by way of testimony to commemorate a friend you have never met,
  whose face you've seen only in an outdated photograph in a newspaper article?
  How do you explain that someone was just a bit larger than life even though, on
  the only occasion that you heard his voice, he sounded like a fragile old man?

      Skeppie and I had been trading E-mails for about 18 months before he died on April 13, 1997. He was one of the first persons that I met in my early days on AOL, and one who made a deep and lasting impression on me. Our exchanges usually contained items we had each written, or seen elsewhere, and knew would be of interest to the other. We shared many similarities of philosophy, world view and understanding of religion. In preparing the Memorial Chat Log as a webpage, I discovered a comment by ISA1, a UU churchmate of Skeppie's, to the effect that Skeppie and I were both self-taught piano players and that we both loved to play Ave Maria. I'm sure he played better than I, because he dared to do so in public, but it does not surprise me that we also shared the same taste in music.

      We both had Jewish ancestries but were not practicing Jews. We both had an understanding of God based on inferred reasoning regarding the natural world. Skeppie shunned labeling himself and, as a result, during his last years others thought of him as an atheist, humanist or agnostic. He was, like me, a deist--though I never heard him call himself that. We shared uncertainties of knowledge about a higher power, believing it was not given to men to know some things.

      Skeppie was elder to me by 17 years, but was 40 years more advanced in reading. As a result, and without consciously intending to do so, he became my teacher and mentor. In a chatroom he was audacious and sometimes shocking. I never saw him intentionally be unkind to another person. In fact, his sense of chivalry and gentlemanliness led many to call him "a ladies man." He was that, too. He saw humor as a way to bridge differences between people.

  ometimes his brand of humor was simply outrageous, bordering on sacrilegious, and
  a test of the Terms of Service rules for conduct on AOL. Skeppie had reached that
  stage of life where he was secure in his understanding of who he was and how he
  should relate to other people.

      His boldness of expression, evident throughout his writings, was the result of his experience of life. In his youth he was subjected to religious discrimination and physical abuse. As a young man he experienced the horrors of war and learned to handle the greatest fears of soldiering. He had held a dying comrade in his arms, seen another plunge to his death trailing a flaming parachute. He survived the Second World War and had seen the survivors of the holocaust. He had, literally, been to hell and back, and he had mastered hell.

      The study of religions was, for Skeppie, a passionate avocation. He, like I, wanted to know the reasons for religious animosity that leads to incivility, hatred and war. He, like I, wanted to do something to lessen religious tensions and leave the world a safer, kinder place for our grandchildren and those to follow. To this end he devoted much of his last 40 years as an editorial writer, playwright, dispenser of jokes, teacher, mentor and trusted friend.

      In a way, Skeppie was my rabbi. As St. Paul is claimed to have said in Acts 22:3 "I [was]. . . . brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law....", so I, metaphorically speaking, sat at the knee of Skeppie, being taught by a master about peace, friendship and world brotherhood.

  o say that I will miss him (Oh, how I do miss him) is understatement. He continues
  to teach me, as it were, from beyond the grave. No, we have not had direct
  communication across the gulf that now separates us (we once joked that, whoever
  crossed over first, would report back on conditions on "the other side.").

      I have not heard his gentle voice since he passed over except through his writings, many of which I had not seen before. I believe that I can best honor his memory by perpetuating those writings--most, if not all of which, appeared in short-lived newspapers or magazines. I have no idea as to the total number of pieces he wrote, but I have close to 50 items in hand. The Nashville Tennessean newspaper honored him for 18 consecutive years for his contributions to their columns and op-ed pages. These will, as they become available, be posted to the Aaron Hiller Memorial Library on this website, in honor of Skeppie, my friend.

      During the Skeptic249 Memorial Chat held during a scheduled UU Chat on The Front Porch, Bdhangel remarked: "I loved it when [Skeppie] and BP were here together. It was like the morning stars singing or bitching together." Earlier, on the day Skeppie died, Bdhangel sent me this note:

    I care about all that you are experiencing just now in relation to the loss of your
friend, Skeptic 249. I have observed your dialogue for several months now, aware
of the ties that bind, and the minds that connect. I know that you and Aaron were
connected in the intangible places of "spirit".

    I honor your quietude....

      Bdhangel had us nailed down pretty well. Just reading through the mail I sent and received during the week after Skeppie died brings tears to my eyes. I will conclude this tribute with the words I wrote in response to Bdhangel and shared with a few friends at that time:

Thank you.

Skeppie was at times a wonderful tonic and a stimulus to thinking.

I was lucky to have had the chance to speak to him on the phone a couple of weeks
ago, to hear his voice and the sound of his laughter. It added another dimension to the
experience of having known him.

Although he sounded frail, and had recently been under the weather, he managed to
experience the joys of living until the end.

He touched many during a long and fortunate life, experiencing much and sharing much.
He was a compassionate and funny person.

About six weeks ago Skeppie sent many of us a story he wrote about his childhood in
New York City [ The Pastrami Tree ]. When I recovered from laughing so much I wrote
a note to him, a portion of which I include here:

"First came the chuckles, then the guffaws, then the uproarious and uncontrollable
laughter. My wife demanded to know what was so funny, and I couldn't catch my
breath or dry my tear-filled eyes well enough to read a paragraph to her--or to do
justice to hawshit. Not for five minutes.

"Just before the wagon got to the kitchen, I could smell and taste the hawshit. In fact
it got my sinuses to running, and I just took a Claritin-D to get things under control.

"This was a fine, fine story. Mark Twain never made me laugh this hard or this long.
Somehow the arthritis doesn't seem so bad. Thank you for this gift."

Skeppie used to say he was Nashville's Thom Paine in the ass. I will remember him as
The Front Porch's Mark Twain. A gift of the spirit. A class act.

      Porchies who have articles written by Skeppie, and not listed in the Memorial Page Index on the PORCHNUS menu, are requested to forward them to BPatter789 for inclusion in the Library. Also, if you would like to post a personal remembrance of Skeppie (see examples in DPebbles10 Memorial) please send it to me and I will include it with my own.

As each life-sustaining heartbeat faithfully follows one another,
It seems to feel imperceptibly weaker than its predecessor.
And as my head feels lighter, I am tempted to wonder
Whether my brain cells are sloughing off to some final destination.
But before they all disappear into an eerie nothingness,
I feel compelled [to share] some somewhat holy thoughts, since
Now at seventy-four years, I don't have many more years.

I guess I am an unbeliever, scoffer, skeptic, heretic!
When I find Truth in Holy Nature while you find Truth in Holy Writ.
Eyes to see and mind to reason--thinker, prober, prying brain
Are gifts bestowed for understanding whence the lightning, why the rain?

Some see God in Holy Scripture's every word and every line.
That's one way of showing reverence, it may be theirs, it isn't mine.
The Bible's words, the true summation: "Love thy neighbor as thyself"
Encompasses my heart's religion, brings me hope and mental health.

"Justice, mercy," Micah's pleading: "walk thou humbly with thy God,"
Are to me more sufficient than Eucharist or Aaron's rod.
The rest is simply commentary, dogma, doctrine, man-made rules,
Roots of bloodshed, war and murder--words turned into power tools.

Use your brain--God's sacred blessing. Revelation's all about.
Study God revealed in Nature; conquer sickness, famine, drought.
Trinities and virgin birthings based on ancient pagan myth
Are enemies of reason, used to snare the faithful with.

Resurrections, sins of babies, added to what Matthew heard,
Caused a mighty transformation--changed the book from word to Word.
I know I am an unbeliever, doubter, seeker, maverick!
When I find Truth in Holy Nature while you depend on Holy Writ.

** Aaron did write his own Eulogy. Under title of My Unitarian Pathway the Eulogy was read by Aaron's son Jonathan at services held April 17, 1997 at The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville. The poem was also printed on the back of the funeral service program. I have other copies of this poem where the title is "A Different Pathway" or "Another Pathway to the Stars."
I doubt that Skeppie ever settled on a final title and I will always think of it as his eulogy. [bp]