MEMORIALS
I just wanted to let you know that Hershel passed peacefully in his sleep Sunday
morning after dealing with cancer and heart issues for several years. Hospice
angels came to our apartment daily to help me in so many ways and I remain
grateful for the excellent hospice training I received in Boquete. He was never
in pain despite metastatic bone cancer.
Posted April 1, 2018---
Just learned of Hershel's passing in New Mexico. Hershel was one of the
earliest expats to come to Boquete. He and his wife Mikey built a house and
lived in Alto Lino for many years before bad health drove them back to the U.S.
Hershel was actually the founder of News.boquete which is still known by some
old-timers as "Hershel's List".
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I am so saddened to hear this news. The only good in this is that Hershel
is not suffering.
Hershel and Mikey were part of the "first wave" of expats to come to this area.
Some even said they were the first wave. They, along with a few others, always
were trying to make things better for our entire community. Hershel and Mikey
and I spent a lot of time together here in Boquete, they at my home and vice
versa. (I was not married then, and so Marcelyn never got to meet either of
them.) They were very active in the early days of the "Tuesday meetings", which
originally started in homes, and then expanded to a size requiring the Panamonte
facilities, etc. When "Hershel's List" (what today is known as News.Boquete) got
too big for administering using simple email clients, Hershel saw the wisdom of
keeping it growing but using newer technology so that scaling was not an issue.
Back in those days, the email list was about 100 or so people. Today it is just
short of 2,000 subscribers and a mainstay communications channel for all of us.
Thanks to Hershel for your vision, and to Penny for carrying forward with
Hershel's List, i.e., News.Boquete.
The most memorable time I had with Hershel was a trip that we did to PC. I was
driving my then Toyota HiLux, and it was during that trip that I saw the breadth
of Hershel's interests in the world around us. He was always humble, never liked
to brag, and rarely got upset or angry. The roads back in those days were not
very good, and so the trip was a long one. Mikey stayed in Boquete, and so it
was just us two guys.
It was shortly after that trip that Hershel and Mikey moved from their home in
Alto Lino to a beach community on the Pacific side of Panama, but they never
forgot their Boquete friends. Later with more health issues, they moved to New
Mexico.
RIP my friend. You will never be forgotten.
Posted April 1, 2018 |