Replies

Remembering Gretchen -- "GEM" -- and what she meant to the Dose.

The Dose was started by Rintense shortly after President Bush was inaugurated in January 2001. The earliest "Day in the life of President Bush" thread (later to affectionately become known as the Dose) I have been able to find in FR archives was posted by Rintense on February 20, 2001.

Rintense kept the Dose going five days a week by herself with only occasional help from fill-in hosts until early in 2003. Even after that point, she continued to post most of the threads, although MJY1288, ohioWfan, truthNtegrity, and Gretchen began to fill in and then take regular days as Rintense gradually cut back on her online activity. Through the years, there have been a number of temporary and regular Dose hosts, including Pippin, marsbars5665, petuniasevan, mtngrl@vrwc, onyx, Just A Nobody, as well as the current hosts, snugs, Jonny, Kaslin and myself.

The earliest Dose thread I've been able to find that Gretchen posted was this one:

A Day in the Life of President Bush (photos): 7/10/03
whitehouse.gov; yahoo.com ^ | July 10, 2003 | GretchenEE
Posted on 07/10/2003 2:47:20 PM PDT by GretchenEE
"The Day of Botswana Bush" finds the United States President, his wife, and daughter, Barbara, on safari, examing the wildlife (and their mating habits) in the Mokolodi Nature Reserve in Gaborone, Botswana. He met with Botswana's President, Festus Mogae. Talks are expected to focus on boosting trade cooperation and America's contribution to Africa's battle against AIDS.
Bush met with Ford Motor Company workers in Pretoria, South Africa. The President is expected to decide within days if he will send US troops to Liberia.

As the years and Rintense's involvement passed, and we moved into President Bush's second term, behind the scenes Gretchen's natural, gentle leadership ability asserted itself, and she became the de facto leader of the small band of regular Dose hosts. Gretchen's role in keeping the Dose going all these years is second only to its founder, Rintense. Even after Gretchen could no longer post Dose threads, she maintained the ping list and helped initiate new regular hosts.

Although I no longer have a record of exactly when, sometime in late 2003 the then-regular hosts, Gretchen, ohioWfan, MJY1288 and truthNtegrity were struggling to cover their days, because Truthy was entering a period in her life when her online activity had to be curtailed. So I offered to help as a fill-in, and they asked me to do weekend threads instead, since they never had enough hosts before to do the Dose seven days a week. Although I no longer have a record of when I posted my first regular thread, it would have been early in 2004.

Throughout these years, I always found Gretchen to be the voice of calm and reassurance during those occasional times when disagreements flared up among the host team. I wanted to share with you the last example of this quality Gretchen had to calm the occasion roiling seas of emotion.

Many of you may know that earlier this year, a disaffected former FR regular started a new website called WideAwakes. He and others invited many FReepers to join them, and a number of similarly disaffected folks chose to do so. There is a bit of an edge of competitiveness with FR to that new site, and in a number of respects they essentially cloned or grafted what they viewed as the best of FR onto WA. One thing they did was copy these "Day in the life of..." threads, and call their version the "Gallery."

Now, before anyone misunderstands why I'm sharing this...please wait until Gretchen's words make my point for me. This isn't an attack on WA. They have every right to do as they please. But you may understand that those of us who have worked to keep the Dose going for so long felt hurt by seeing it ripped off by people who could still enjoy the original here.

Anyway, when the existence of the "Gallery" was called to my attention, typical "bull in the china shop" that I am, I rushed over to WA and, in an attempt to try to explain/defend our point of view here, sent a private message to the person who happened to have posted that day's "Gallery" thread. Although I acknowledged their right to do it, I also said they were hurting people who never did them any harm. One thing led to another, with the upshot that I was banned from WA. And, Irish-Italian that I am, I was both hurt and angry. I send a FReemail to Gretchen, and here is her response:

Re: Have you seen the “Gallery” over at WideAwakes?
To Wolfstar | 05/30/2007 9:24:04 AM PDT sent
Hi Pat,
I have seen it; a fair number of WA’rs have pinged me to it, asking me to sign up. I hardly have time for FR, let alone somewhat of a mirror site at this time. Like you, I found it stung a bit, especially [name deleted] declining our invitation twice, only to post it there. As you say, however, it is a free country. I’d add, water seeks its own level — people are going to go where they are most comfortable most of the time, unless they have a conviction that they need to tough it out in their current circumstances.
I certainly understand your feelings. For the sake of my blood pressure, I decided to take the view that more good may come out of two conservative sites presenting the president and his agenda, and let the personal stuff slide off the mountain.
Gretchen

And so, following Gretchen's lead as I had done so many times in the past, I let it go.

The Dose has lost its 2nd most important leader after Rintense. Those of us who were privileged to work along side of Gretchen to keep it going have lost a dear friend and colleague. And most importantly, we all have lost a gentle, kindhearted, dedicated person who made her particular corner of this weary world a much better place for her having passed through it.

God bless you, Gretchen. I love you and will miss you. I thank you for the life lessons you taught me. I'm glad your suffering is over and that you are at peace in a place no hurt can ever reach you again. In the fullness of time, we will all follow -- even the President we have tried, in our own small ways -- to serve.