Interesting. I was just thinking about Raeban just the other day. She was a real jewel and was soooo mischievous. And that's a trait I always enjoy, appreciate and respect. Had the pleasure of her company (and onefreeman's) many times and still miss our late night IM sessions.

I never had the pleasure of personally meeting johna. Our one and only scheduled meet was canceled due to his illness. But I fondly recall a few email conversations I had with him. And of course, his many great posts here on FlyerTalk.

Never met Nathan Detroit in person either, but we had many, many wonderful email exchanges. He was a real character with fine character! Could always make me laugh with his writing style. We had much in common to talk about.

Couple of years ago I was in Singapore with essxjay. She was very close to Nathan. He had just recently passed away and she wanted to toast his memory at the same bar where they had had drinks on another past trip where they met in Singapore. I got to the bar first and picked a table and took a seat. When essxjay showed up she scanned the many dozens of tables looking for me. When she finally spotted me, she came to the table with a kind of amazed look on her face. "What's so funny?" I asked. "This is just too strange" she said, and continued, "This is the exact table that Nathan picked the last time we were here...and you picked it too!"

"You see?" I said, "Nathan always worked in mysterious ways." We then toasted to his memory.