The Announcement
We are (sadly) not making this up:
On October 20, 2004, Dave Barry announced that, from January, for at least a year, he is giving up the grind of producing his weekly column for the Miami Herald.
A time to Reflect
Despite his many avid readers voicing immediate and profound dismay at this (via a lengthy outpouring of wailing, poetry, and re-written song lyrics on the Dave Barry Blog), there is a very real chance that, at the end of December 2004, the world will see the passing of something truly remarkable.
Dave has been producing his columns for the better part of 30 years. Which, when you do the math, means that he has written something like 1,500 columns, or well in excess of a million words. Unfortunately, much of this work has been lost to general posterity, although selected columns have appeared in some of his books.
Birth of a Web Site
While writing a eulogy for the column (Dave, of course, is not what is passing on), one fan thought that it would be an opportune moment to gather together a sort of huge farewell card made up of written and verbal messages from his loyal readers so that it could be formed into a gift for Dave as he starts his well earned break.
Having thus conceived the concept, the fan then manipulated the collection of string and chewing gum that is the Internet, and with further assistance from a generous amount of alcohol and the kind input of selected pedants, this site was born. It should be mentioned at this point that much of this would not have been possible were it not for the remarkable (and free) collection of string and gum provided by Google at www.blogger.com.
How the Site Will Work
The site has a couple of ways you can add a farewell message:
We are (sadly) not making this up:
On October 20, 2004, Dave Barry announced that, from January, for at least a year, he is giving up the grind of producing his weekly column for the Miami Herald.
A time to Reflect
Despite his many avid readers voicing immediate and profound dismay at this (via a lengthy outpouring of wailing, poetry, and re-written song lyrics on the Dave Barry Blog), there is a very real chance that, at the end of December 2004, the world will see the passing of something truly remarkable.
Dave has been producing his columns for the better part of 30 years. Which, when you do the math, means that he has written something like 1,500 columns, or well in excess of a million words. Unfortunately, much of this work has been lost to general posterity, although selected columns have appeared in some of his books.
Birth of a Web Site
While writing a eulogy for the column (Dave, of course, is not what is passing on), one fan thought that it would be an opportune moment to gather together a sort of huge farewell card made up of written and verbal messages from his loyal readers so that it could be formed into a gift for Dave as he starts his well earned break.
Having thus conceived the concept, the fan then manipulated the collection of string and chewing gum that is the Internet, and with further assistance from a generous amount of alcohol and the kind input of selected pedants, this site was born. It should be mentioned at this point that much of this would not have been possible were it not for the remarkable (and free) collection of string and gum provided by Google at www.blogger.com.
How the Site Will Work
The site has a couple of ways you can add a farewell message:
- Send an e-mail with your message in it
- Phone in a farewell that gets captured as an audio file
How to do this is explained further on the How to Contribute page.
We will also be gathering up a set of the more memorable bits and pieces we can find and posting them ready for printing off as part of the present. If you have any suggestions for things to add, e-mail them to dwcme@email.com.
With luck it will be a bit of fun, and hopefully a fitting tribute to an epic career that has brought so much pleasure, to so many, for so long, and in so many places, that even Winston Churchill would have run out of superlatives....
