tmi_siggy

The sad thing is, Siggy, known as Michael Mason to his parents and S.F.
& F. Fandom, was really looking forward to New Years at Twigsville. He
probably passed away a couple days before he planned to head South to
San Diego County.

I'll pass along a funeral date and a memorial date once his parents get
his body back from the coroner.

Preacher's Angel was curious that she hadn't heard from Siggy on the
Monday after Christmas because she thought he was going to be working,
and if he worked, he IM'd friends ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. But her concern
was eased when someone remembered that Siggy's planned to head out early
and maybe spend a day here and there at border casinos.

When none of the couple of calls (from different people) to his cell
phone were answered, many noted that he almost never returned calls.
And so another rise of concern was put aside.

It was seen as prudent that he'd actually gone ahead and rented a car
for the trip. Siggy was not going to miss Twigsville and was worried
his wonky car would give him trouble, and often mentioned thinking about
renting a vehicle. So when I drove by his apartment Thursday night (30
Dec), when he should already be at Twigsville, and spotted his car, we
let the mystery lay. He'd tell us what happened when he returned.

It finally came to a head when Siggy didn't return to IM'ing the world
on Monday, 3 January, 2005 that Preacher's Angels's concern overcame all
the "He's okay"s,

I went by his apartment around 6:30 p.m. with Tadao(Friendly Pine Tree)
and our friend Arlene in tow. We saw that his car was still where I saw
it the previous Thursday. There are keys that Preacher's Angel, Pheonix
and I keep for Siggy so he can get into his car or apartment if
accidentally locked out. Preacher's Angel had insisted we finally see
what was happeneing. Siggy wasn't answering new and urgent calls to his
cell. Both Tadao and I tried to open the door to Siggy's apartment, but
the keys wouldn't work. We went to get some food and figure out if
calling the police was really our next move.

I realized the simplest way to see if Siggy'd even made it to Twigsville
was to call someone who'd been there. I spoke to Normal and found out
she had not seen him. It finally started to sink in that something was
wrong, cause Siggy liked to hang out with her as a younger sister. If
he hadn't been in her presence then how could he been at Twigsville?
Next step was to call Noosha. This took 3 tries with 3 different cell
phones. Noosha confirmed that Uncle Siggy had never shown up.

OK, we quit dinner and returned to his apartment. We brought out the
on-site manager and told her our story. She replied that it was very
strange for him to have not payed the rent on the first, he was always
on time. The manager then said her key didn't work because there'd been
a problem recently where they'd needed to bring out a locksmith to fix
Siggy's door and she'd never ended up with a new key.

Tadao got a neighbor to loan a phone while he called the local police
station. I went around back and ripped off the screen to the window of
his spare bedroom and used some remembered juvenile skills to open the
window. I went back around and pulled Tadao & the manager back to show
them the open window I'd found.

She gives Tafao permission to enter and he jumps through as we race back
round front to meet him at the door. With Tadao in the lead and the
manager behind me (we insisted Arlene remain outside to wait for the
police, we searched the apartment until we found Michael "Siggy" in his
bed.

The paramedics arrived and confirmed our sad belief that Siggy was dead
and made a preliminary call that Siggy'd been gone for 3 to 5 days, or
more.

Siggy'd been saying for years that members of his family only died 2
way, by cancer in their 40's or old age in their 80's. I believed him.
So did others.

I don't know if there'd have been a different conclusion if we'd payed
attention to Preacher's Angel's first concern. When Michael's parents
hear from the coroner, you'll hear from me. There are so many small
things that happen, which just add up, that you still don't want to
believe the unthinkable is possibly happening, that I rarely let it get
to me enough to result in action, cause so much of the time, it's just a
flat tire and an uncharged cell phone, or other tiny things that amount
to nothing more than inconvenience in the long run, over the times when
a friend stands up, takes a couple of steps and drops dead and you hear
about it before they are even late enough for anyone to be concerned.

An additional email from TMI had links to some photos of Siggy

Here's a couple more good examples of Siggy: