Thursday, January 19, 2012

Illy-T: Escape From Fitzwalkerstan

Ah, the emotional roller coaster which our lives in Fitzwalkerstan have become.

On Tuesday, my eyes welled up in tears of joy, gratitude and satisfaction as I learned that one million of my closest friends have stood up and shouted in one voice, "NO MORE!"

Just one day later, my eyes again well up, but the tears are now of sadness and loss.

One of my best friends and one of, if not the best, legal bloggers is about to make the great escape from Fitzwalkerstan.

Tom Foley, aka Illusory Tenant, or Illy-T to his friends, has come across one of those rare opportunities most people dream of, and is leaving our great state and his adopted home of many years for the arduous task of spending his days in the harsh clime of the Caribbean.  Quite a bit different than Canada, I'd imagine.

In his own terse but effective style, he has already said farewell.

I've known for weeks that Tom was leaving, but was able to successfully suppress that knowledge, and the sadness it brings, until I saw the finality in that one post.

It was only then that the full impact of his departure will have on my life.

Tom has been a wealth of information, especially when it came to matters of the law.  His wit and charm was ever present, as he would dissect, clarify and illustrate, with the casual flair of a true wordsmith, the issues that were happening in the legal aspect of our fight to win back our very rights.

I have leaned heavily on his knowledge, skill and artistry, whether he was jousting with the ineffective and hypocritical GOP activist named Esenberg, making light work of the squawking heads like Jessica McBride and Charlie Sykes, or taking on the boss anti-justice Michael Gableman.

This loss of the fountain of knowledge will greatly diminish the Cheddarsphere, without argument.

But it is also crushing on a personal level.

Tom has been more than a friend, but a brother to me.  He put up with my weeks of indecisiveness on what to call this blog when I decided it was time to go solo and even designed the header at the top of this page, again with the patience of a saint as I was overly demanding, wanting things just so.  I will miss the behind the scenes banter we had, the jokes and one liners we shared.

Most of all, in a debt I cannot ever repay, Tom was a stalwart supporter and stood by me and advised me as I was being assailed by Walker and his minions for daring to speak out against him.

In his final note, he thanks us "for all the cheese."

Indeed, it is all of us that owe him our thanks, and I owe him far more than that.

For another take from another one of Tom's close friends, and from who I hope becomes Tom's successor (but no replacement) as Royal Barrister, I would refer the gentle reader to Mike Plaisted's site.

And on a final note to Tom - once you get settled in, feel free to send me a line so that we can come an visit, especially in the winter.

5 comments:

  1. I didn't get to know Tom except through the interwebs and back channel emails, but will miss him. I'm hoping he relapses and starts commenting long distance.

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  2. I've been missing his tweets so much - they were amazingly informative, often very funny. Thanks for filling in some background on his disappearance. This is a real loss to Wisconsin.

    bxknits

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  3. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

    Foot stomping.

    Temper Tantrum.

    Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

    Rinse, lather, repeat.

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  4. Come back!

    Shane!

    Come back!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWdPmapuOd4

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  5. That stinks for us. That's great for him. And maybe he'll have a spare hammock.

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