Freeper Fivetoes Passed Away Last Night

Fellow Freeper, Tom Buchanan,(Fivetoes)had a heart attack and passed away this morning. He will be missed.

I surely am going to miss Tom "Fivetoes" Buchanan!

His sudden heart attack was totally unexpected, according to Dorié and several of his sons who have already arrived in town to support her (I took a ham down to them this afternoon for purposes of feeding visiting out-of-town-family .... nobody feels like cooking at times like this).

He was the most energetic, creative, funny, conservative street activist I've ever known.

Although as some of you have noted, he hasn't posted on FR in almost 10 years, if you search for his posts and keep hitting "Next Page" you'll find that he was a major driving force behind N Colo's Operation Infinite Freep, and posted here extensively in those years, especially around 2002-2005.

He organized many - probably most - of the Freeps that we N. Colo Freepers held across the streets from local Leftists in Loveland, Ft. Collins, Longmont, Greeley, Denver, Boulder. And occasionally outside military bases (Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Buckley in Denver) and Recruiting Offices whenever we heard they were about to be harrassed by anti-Armed-Forces Leftists. He also organized a number of "bridge-top rallies" across Interstates with displays of Old Glory and "Support Our Troops" banners. In May 2004, as the COLO contact person for FR, Tom organized a streetside Freep in FtC plus a dinner to honor Jim & Sheila Robinson on their cross-country tour to FR strongholds.

He also started and led the Loveland 9-12 Project and a series of "Bill of Rights Day" lectures, and was a leader in other organizations such as the Loveland Marine Corps League.

He started & maintained a number of small websites, mostly dedicated to conservative causes but sometimes just plain humor - everything from 2nd Amendment rights on down to "Prairie Dog Fishing".

He also took on tasks too many to count within our County GOP - District Captain, Executive Board member, Photographer, Webmaster (from the beginning), was a delegate to countless State/County/Congressional-District assemblies, moderated debates between GOP candidates, and Chaired various committees such as Resolutions. Whenever he chaired or moderated a meeting, you could count on three things to start off the meeting: Not just the usual two of a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, but also a rousing chorus of God Bless America. Dang, I'll miss him!

So yeah, I can understand why he hasn't posted to FR in awhile, with so many irons in the fire - not to mention a family and a fulltime job he had to commute to each day in another city.

He had an incredibly quick wit. When leftists across the street lobbed some verbal missile our way, he'd shout out the perfect comeback while the rest of us were still trying to figure out an appropriate response. Just a few examples of his humor:

At a Support Our Troops rally, a woman in a mini-van making a left turn around our corner called out something nasty, and without hesitating a second, Tom replied, "YOU'LL LOOK REAL CUTE IN A BURQA! OF COURSE, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO DRIVE ANY MORE!"
In the early days before someone complained about "noise" from our rallies, he would bring along his bullhorn to lead our side in The Pledge (the bullhorn was so that "The Dark Side" of the street would have a chance to learn the words), and to serenade the other side on occasion. One I really enjoyed was: "My burqa lies over the ocean, my burqa lies over the sea ........ bring back, oh bring back my burqa to me, to me ......"
He took a photo of a leftist activist across the street, and photo-shopped his head inside the mouth of a lion named Saddam. The activist heard about it and protested mightily, demanding the photo be taken down. Heh heh!
Another leftist slowly rode his bicycle past us with a sign on the rear saying "BUILD BICYCLES, NOT BOMBS". Tom quickly took a photo and posted it to our next weekly Op Infinite Freedom "FReports" next to a photo-shopped image of a B52 with its bomb bay doors open as it drops a long line of bicycles out of the sky.
He once stood up at a meeting to announce his plan to solve our porous southern border. He noted that recently a single envelope containing unidentified white powder mailed to Capitol Hill resulted in both houses of Congress being shut down for days (a fake anthrax scare). And his suggestion was that if that worked so well to shut down DC, then why not lay down a line of white powder along the border?

There's so much more to say but I'll let others do it. Here's a good start: I just now saw this article about Tom in his town's newspaper ---

Loveland political activist Tom Buchanan dies

And my understanding is there's lots on Facebook now.

Go in peace, Tom!

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