Patteau was my friend. That may surprise some of you, but we were real life friends for 15+ years, I met Gene at my Arrowhead tailgate sometime in the mid 2000’s. It was the only time we ever met face to face. We hit it off at the tailgate. We only knew each other from Chiefs Planet, we were obviously totally opposites in our political views but outside of that subject, we found we had a lot in common.
We decided to stay in real life contact after the game. Over the 15+ years we kept in touch with what was happening in our real lives. We worked together many times on the packages for the troops. He gave his time and not just money to help get those packages out to the troops.
He was so proud of his daughters. He would go on about how smart they were. Both are successful in life now. They live in NY and LA and as he said so proudly, just as conservative in their views as him.
Gene went through a divorce, daughters moving to different states. Moving etc. I shared with him my son’s path, my moves, milestones etc.
And then there was Gene’s health issues. I swore to keep them to myself. Sometimes I wanted to defend him about being short or aggressive towards someone. You would be short too if you only ½ of one lung left.
At the end, Gene needed a walker to move. On oxygen all the time. Have multiple cancers in different places. Paralysis in his right arm so when he posted on the Planet. He was only able to post using his one good arm and hand.
He was still fighting all that to the end. He did not go gently into the night. He went out fighting death with everything he had. I can only hope that when my time comes, I’ll have the courage he showed.
I will miss my friend.
Gene is the one behind Stevie Ray on the left. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
When patteeu and I showed up at college, the school didn't want to build a new dorm with the baby bust coming, so they did all sorts of things to find housing for students. At UMR, one of those things was to book up the low-end 1950s motels out on the highway and turn them into dorms. They then ran a bus service to get the students to and from campus.
Apparently market research consultants were a thing even in the early '80s. [Reply]
Rest in Peace Pat! I regret never having the pleasure of meeting you in person. You set a fine example of how to treat and interact with people, even total idiots, that is a very high bar.
The last few years of my Dad's life, who lived to be 90, he said, "I am the only one left"
I am starting to get a clue what he was talking about as this is becoming all to common place of losing friends and or aquaintences. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
After we got our graduate degrees, we went our separate ways. I moved to Denver and he moved back to his hometown area of Kansas City. He went to work for an IT consulting company, and got assigned to a big project in ... Denver. So we met once or twice when our schedules allowed. But then we fell out of touch for several years.
I started my company and was working alone from home all day, and at some point I found the Star board to talk football. It was a great social outlet for a lone eagle entrepreneur. That led me to CP, and I happily posted there for a couple of years when I got a PM. It said, "I think I know you."
Patteeu and I had coincidentally found CP, and you know the rest.
He was a great guy. Always honorable, always clever, always respectful of others. I think we were destined to be friends because we had this Forrest Gump-like quality of always encountering each other - college, our engineering jobs, grad school, and chiefsplanet. I'm tempted to say that if I had a twin it would've been patteeu, but I don't think that does him justice. He was always moving through life at a higher level, and I was honored to ride with his posse.
This was a huge loss for CP. Patteeu was true gentleman, and one of the few DC regulars that was capable of rational conversation. One hell of a way to go out as well.
Another humorous story about patteeu, though you have to look past the details to see the big picture.
We were both really into wargames, and at some point we signed up to play a mega-board game about World War III. It was played on a massive board, 6' x 6' or maybe even 8' x 8', and some dude had it laid out on the floor of his guest bedroom. It was a massively complex game where you only played 10 or 12 turns, but each turn had a dozen steps and would 8 or 10 hours. We decided that we would play every Sunday for three months.
We drew lots for our roles, and I ended up being the NATO central front leader (mainland Europe), and patteeu drew NATO's southern front (Balkans, Turkey, and the Med Coast down to Egypt). We had another guy who had the northern front (Scandinavia, Britain, and the North Sea). We were taking on three other guys with similar Warsaw Pact fronts.
My opponent on the Central Front was a guy who could be kind of obnoxious, and he also had a bit of advantage in knowing the rules since it was his game. I didn't have a full grasp of the rules in Turn 1 and messed something up, and suddenly there was a breach in the Fulda Gap. We had bad weather that grounded my air forces in Turn 2, and the rout was on as his troops poured through. With no other choice, I ran away from the breach and set up strongholds in the Alps and a massive fortress in the low countries. My opponent was being pretty obnoxious about it, gloating in a manner that I didn't appreciate. Patteeu didn't appreciate that type of behavior, because he was a humble guy who was always gracious in victory or defeat.
Turn 3 rolled around and suddenly I realized that my opponent had made a major error. He was ignoring my two fortresses and pushing forward, gloating about approaching the Rhine and reaching France. But his supply lines were suddenly vulnerable.
I was chatting about this with patteeu midweek, and I mentioned that I thought I had a good chance to trap the entire invading army without supplies. So we hatched a plan.
Turn 4 rolled around and we listened to the gloating as we gathered. Then the week's activities started. My opponent kept moving into France gleefully. Patteeu was a good commander so his front was pretty stable. He also controlled a lot of B-52 forces based in Turkey. They took off, but instead of fighting on his front they headed north while his ground forces hunkered down. He pounded my opponent's supply lines. Then I unleashed hell, pincering in from my two strongholds and utterly destroying my opponent's battered supply chain. Suddenly I had his entire invading force cut off without supplies. My opponent didn't gloat at the end of the night.
The next week we went into Turn 5. My opponent tried to break through, but patteeu sent the B-52s in again, and my line easily held. When the turn ended, my opponent saw the writing on the wall. He said, "Well, it seems like maybe we're in stalemate mode. Maybe we should end the game now."
Patteeu and I leapt into action. We both strongly voted that the game should continue since we were only halfway through the game. The other three players all shrugged, so it was two against one and we kept going.
For the next three weeks, I unleashed the dogs of war on this guy. It was complete and utter destruction, executed without mercy. The obnoxious guy couldn't get his troops supplied and I hunted them down like vermin. I was able to repay patteeu's B-52s with extra troops for his front and he launched an offensive and pushed forward. Every week my opponent proposed calling off the game as a draw and every week patteeu and I would vote as a bloc to keep it going, convincing the others to vote with us.
By Turn 9, the other players finally called a mercy rule because we had obliterated the enemy, were approaching the Soviet border, and completely humbled the obnoxious guy. Patteeu and I exchanged sly smiles when they finally called it. [Reply]
Thanks for sharing these stories, RM. If it was ever brought up on the board about your and patt’s real life history I missed it. It’s a really neat story. And I’m sorry for your personal loss. [Reply]
