On Unca Carl

Dr. Archontis Pantsios apantsio at ac.anatolia.edu.gr
Wed Aug 30 12:39:23 CEST 2000


Fellow Quackeroos:

I knew that Unca Carl had been very ill--we all knew it for quite some time
now. The news of his physical death, however, found me "unprepared" while
vacationing in a resort in Chalkidiki, northern Greece. It was last Monday,
3 days after Carl's death, when I had leisurely opened the daily "TO VIMA"
while enjoying a beautiful sunset. 

Suddenly I cought glimpse of a title "Barksism" in the "Culture" pages of
the newspaper. Initially I thought it was just an article on the great
Master and was happily surprised to see that--almost immediately, however,
my wife sitting next to me said: "oh my God, it says that Barks has passed
away last Friday"...

I had not felt the emotions that raced thru my psyche many times before in
my life. I suddenly felt empty. Something had cracked inside me, something
was gone.

The first time I had heard of his name was only back in 1988. For many years
he was just a name, a cult figure. As the years were going by, and as I had
accumulated and read all of his great stories and had devoured almost
everything said by him or written on him, I started feeling he was part of
my "family".

He was in many important ways: if I list the few things that have (or are)
making me happy in my life, Barks' stories will figure in prominently; I'm
now raising my own children on his stories. He's been a major pedagogist in
our household. 

As the years were going by, Barks continued being around. For a time there,
we had all believed he'd always be around.

Well, in many ways he will; people on this list have expressed many reasons
for feeling grateful to the "Good Artist". For me, the reason is very
simple: he made my life much happier; I'm glad I was able to tell him that
in a card I sent him ~2 months ago.

May God rest his soul.

Archontis--back to Greece as of August 15th.




---------------------------------------
Archontis L. Pantsios, Ph.D.
Assistant Academic Dean and Associate Professor
The American College of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece





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