Carroll LeFon, ex US Navy pilot, poet-warrior, died yesterday in an airplane crash. I have never met the gentleman (in all senses), but was a devoted reader of his for years, and we have exchanged the odd email. Eulogies are pouring out all over the blogosphere. Lex has left behind an awesome corpus of work even just counting his blog; enough material to fill a book with. I am unworthy of identifying his “best of Lex” articles, so many times has he made this grown man exhilarated or all teared up, sometimes in the same piece. To lose a man who can create like this – or from a selfish point of view, to have no more to read from Lex – is terribly sad. But at least we can re-read.

Last week, Andrew Brietbart also died. He was not a literal soldier like Lex, but did wield his own sort of weapon against his own sort of enemy. He too left prodigious artifacts behind. His politics may not be your cup of tea; if it isn’t, consider instead some departed leftie like a Kennedy or a Layton. One can slurp their saved intellectual nectar for quite awhile.

UPDATE: I meant to also mention Michael Masterov, who until his sudden death during a motorcycle accident, spent years tirelessly educating his readers on all matters aviation. This was through some thousand postings on Usenet, and via meetings with pilot groups throughout the USA.

I have written before that approximately everyone’s ideas are worth saving. One day, we all become just memories. Please care that those memories last. Please, record your stories, keep them safe, pass them on. It makes loss less lousy.