Marlene the Merciless Momma
My friend!
MMM, a part of the light, my best friend has crossed over. She's been a
special part of my life since 1985, when I moved back to Nova Scotia.
Shortly after I got here and set up my computer, I would get on the bbs
scene in town. There were a few Atari based ones, and one was run by Len
MacGillivray, whom I later found out was a teen-ager.
Marlene and her friend Linda were among the first people I ran into on
these bulletin boards. Later, 1986 I think, we would get to meet. Somehow
they got the nicknames, Marlene the Merciless Momma, and Linda the
Luscious Leprechaun. Marlene was to become a driving force in the local
Atari Users Group, Nova Scotia Atari Computer User Group,
NSACUG.
With Bruce MacKay who had moved to Halifax in 1986, we became fast
friends. Bruce's wife, Debbie, also was great friends with Marlene as they
both did crafts of many kinds. As Jennifer, MMM's daughter, would say, and
Deb confirms, they were jealous of our friendship. Jennifer, You were NOT
a pest. I loved having you there to talk to.
LLL and MMM got NSACUG involved with the IWK Telethon in 1987, or 1988. It
was an excellent time. I loved it. For several years after that Marlene,
Bruce, Madonna Emberley, myself and a few others would work 24 hour shifts
with the telethon. I still do along with Madonna and Bill Kennedy from the
valley (he's not an Atari user).
I remember a time at one of the grand parties after the Telethon, and the
DJ would play the Bird Dance!!! She just loved it!!
For a couple of years, I was in Halifax in the evenings, and since MMM
worked a number of evenings, I would stop in at the Infirmary when she was
working. Got to talk to her a lot with her and her co-workers. (Hey, MMM,
Sm**ma!). I think she knew I was pretty alone at the time, and didn't know
lots of people, so she looked after me! Another name she was known by in
the bbs's was The Den-Mother.
I also got to meet her husband, Jim as well as her daughter Jennifer and
son Kevin. It's been most gratifying to see them grow into the fine young
people they are today. It crossed my mind that I'm a lot older than I
thought when I commented to Kevin that he must be in his second or third
year of university and he said it was almost 5 years of study.
One of the things she was interested in was the Inca peoples of South
America. Every once in a while I'd see a listing in the TV Guide and pass
it on to her to watch. Recently she and I were talking and she was going
on about something, and I started to laugh. She asked me, "WHAT! was I
laughing about!"
Once upon a time, she had said that she couldn't do the new programming
languages like C, because she couldn't get her head around pointers! Well,
the topic we were discussing couldn't be done without the use of pointers,
and when I started laughing it was because she had obviously made the leap
into understanding.
Over the years, MMM would help out as a volunteer with the various
baseball, hockey or other sports that Kevin would get involved in. She
took on these jobs with all the enthusiasm of a young kid herself! Never
mind she was 18 months older than I was! Recently she got involved again
with the baseball teams again! They're going to miss her AND her help.
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