I am sure most people today have a lot to be thankful for, it is a much celebrated holiday here in the United States, Thanksgiving is a time spent with family being thankful for what we have, and remembering what we’ve lost. Unfortunately earlier this week a family friend of ours passed away.

Jack Foley was a retired Colonel in the United States Air Force, we lived next door to the Foleys in 1985/1986 while we lived on Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina. My parents always remained close to the Foleys throughout the years, and Natalie and I had dinner with his son Mason and his wife a few years back when we were in Atlanta for a race. My parents had dinner with Jack within the past couple of years as they were travelling around the country in the RV.

When we were neighbors he got our family into computers, we bought our Commodore 128 while in NC and he got me programming for the first time on that computer. I didn’t do much, but I do remember being amazed at the things he showed me how to do on that computer. From then on we had a computer in the Hammond household. In 1993 when we were moving from California to Indiana we stopped in Nebraska to visit the Foleys, I distinctly remember Jack talking about the ability to send images from one computer to another, remotely over a service called Compuserv. We were Prodigy subscribers, but it wouldn’t be till a few years later that I sent photos over email, at the time Jack told me about it I thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard of. Now, 15 years later, here I sit, computers and the internet are what I do for a living.

Thank you Jack Otis Foley for getting me into computers and helping me become what I am today. To your family, I am sorry for your great loss, I am proud of the fact that we were your neighbors in North Carolina and family friends for life.