Re: Charlie and COMMON -- MIDRANGE-L

I too learned 'SPLAT' from Charlie. At one point in 1988 we hired a developer from India who had no middle name. We used everyone's initials for changes in programs and required 3 initials to keep things neat and in line. So hers became G*P which as you can imagine was pronounced 'Gee Splat Pee' :-) She is known by that even today over 30 years later.

- DrFranken

On 5/16/2022 6:36 AM, Jerry Adams wrote:

Larry,

Your explanation of PGM made me laugh. Whenever I would give a session at
our LUG, I would verbalize the IBM options as 'Splat ALL' not 'Asterisk
ALL', for example. "What?" someone would say. Well, that's what Charlie
called it so that's what it is, and even those who had never been to a
conference would nod and go, 'Oh, okay then; it's a 'splat'." They knew.

Charlie never had a bad thing to say about anyone, even if/when he disagreed
with them. "Jerry, you're one of the nicest guys I know [he probably said
that about most people, really] BUT...". And MOM was almost always dull -
except when Charlie was there, as you said. More than once he stepped down
from the podium when he was on the Board and stood in line at a mic like
everyone else.

Jerry C. Adams
I never drink water; that is the stuff that rusts pipes. -W.C. Fields
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
--
NMM&D
615-585-2175

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2022 12:14 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Charlie and COMMON

It has become abundantly clear to me that Charlie was universally
respected and revered throughout the COMMON Community.

A post on LinkedIn about his passing has garnered vast numbers of
remembrances, all positive.

For those of you who don't remember Charlie as a mainstay of COMMON, he
volunteered for 33 years and did pretty much everything from session
manager to President. In my COMMON career he was one of those who moved
me along in volunteering. Partly because of Charlie, I now have 25 years
of volunteering including many, though not all, of the positions that
Charlie did. I also don't have the cool hat. :-)

Charlie was also the guy who trained me how to pronounce things. Things
like PGM were 'pigem' for example.

I never really paid close attention to the wide range of sessions he
did. He authored more than 50, and while he was very well known for
sessions in development, especially RPG, he also did session on PTFs for
example!

I traded notes with Frank Soltis about the news and his comment was that
he couldn't remember a conference where Charlie wasn't an imposing
presence. He even remembered at Sound off that when Charlie got to the
mic it was 'whaddaya got Charlie, let us have it.' :-)

For those of you attending POWERUp! in New Orleans in just over a week,
and we hope MANY of you do, we will be remembering Charlie. Be sure to
pick up a ribbon remembering him, you can guess what's on it and it's in
his favorite color too. We're also trying to get some informal
gatherings to remember him and we'll be making that known as organized!

Thank you all,
Larry Bolhuis
Immediate Past President, COMMON