A special story
I didnt knew where to put thise exactly, also don't know where to start it....
I mentioned on previous occasions that i was member of different fora, ever since I found out the existence of them. Not all were related to militaria, but by some strange way, militaria and history never seemed to be that far away.
So here I was on a social forum of ebay Belgium, but the French speaking part(!), were I got by pure coincidence.
I virtualy met a large number of people, and we had a great time for many years on that forum.
We mainly chat, helped each other with all kind of problems. Some problems were related to technical things regarding ebay, or PC problems etc..
The forum was open to every one, but i must say that we gave ourself a different status,and were like a "elite" of the ebay forum.
We "banned" any one who wasn't gratified by us, by lynching or by negating them; in short we were a real groupe of more or less a 100.
We had some reunions, were we met each other, some were in the National Military Museum, but we had some on fairs and even in private.
I didn't participated on all the meetings because of the distance.
Some of them even came to give me and my wife, a hand moving our stuff when i closed the shop, more then 8 years ago. They came early, left late and did over 100 km just to help!
One of the members got sick and paralyzed in a no time. And the groupe got together and bought here a pc adapted to here handicap.
It was a real expensive piece of technolgy. We all put stuff up for sale on ebay and donated it. I remember one member who was a collector selling his best Model 24 Stielhandgranate for the cause! That guy got in social trouble later and got mean to most groupe members...I was the last one he held contact with, but I also lost track at the end.
Not only goods were sold, to rise funds! Some female members got nude on a calender, a song was recorded on a cd and sold, diners and reunions were held to get the money, and they made it happen.
But all sorts of other things happend and were shared on the forum and not always for the best! My wife called it a "soap"... and looking at it now it might have been so, but it was realy happening...Some couples of the groupe split, some changed partners....well the normal s*** just has we all know from real live, exept that I withnessed it mainly through the forum.
And despite the bad experiences some encoutered the spirit on that forum was always very enjoyable.
Because of severe troubles on the ebay forum in France, ebay closed that forum, but the Frenchies came in exile to the Belgian French speaking forum to continue theyre war and our forum got closed as well.
All groups that were involved started theyre own fora, but the spirit got lost.... One thing that remained is the friendship and I still meet some of the old ebay forum members today.
One of them is some one I had a special bound with, for a reason I can't explain. And i know I mentioned thise before in a other treath, so forgive me as I am repeating myself, but it is important to me that i am able to share thise.
So thise is a guy I never met, who speaks a different language and lives over 100 km from, that made me remember of a good friend I lost many years before.The coincidence was even bigger when he posted a pic of him when he was younger and even looked like the friend I had lost.
Only a few of the ebay groupe met that guy, who apparantly was ashamed for the way he looks now (that I just found out recently!) because of a illness he's waight went up to 180 kg. The illness is a sever thing he is fighting now.
With thise guy*, me and the guy of the grenade we re -played "allo,allo", Monty python, Black adder,and many more on the ebay forum. It is quiet rare to find French people having that sence of humor. Also the interference ,when doing thise, with other ebay members who are French and don't know these characters was hilarious in some momments.
I am going to close thise treath because i had a rough night and need something to eat.
As thise was only the introduction to my story, I'll come back later with the battle of Mons and a signal pistol....
To be continued!
;-)
cheers
|<ris
* I am going to call him "Mega" (part of his nickname on fora)to continue the story!
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by Walkwolf
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