Dale Crum Sighting

Back in the early 1990s, Dale Crum was one of what I call the Four Pillars of TPRS w/ Joe Neilson, Blaine Ray and a bit later on Susan Gross. In the oddest set of coincidences, I see Dale on his bike around Denver every year or two. Those who in our PLC go back to its very first beginnings around 2000 know that I always like to report another Dale Crum sighting. To know that Dale is riding around Denver in obscurity, retired now, makes me want to do the right thing and remind all new readers here that yes there was more to the beginnings of all of this exciting work we are doing than just Blaine and Krashen. Yes, their influence was monumental, but there were others and so when I saw Dale on the road this morning it gladdened my heart and made me remember that this has been and always will be a team effort, with no single personality who knows everything (dangerous), that we really are part of a karass* and that we appreciate each teacher who has walked this oftentimes lonely and very uphill road in their classrooms by themselves against great odds and unavoidable stress, like in Dale’s case, without a lot of reward. We all owe each other for sticking in there and trying new things on behalf of our students and our own mental health, and Dale was there at the beginning. If the pattern for me of seeing Dale on his bike somewhere on the Denver bike trails once every two years holds true as it has over the past ten years, I should see him again in 2020. I look forward to it.
*karass – Wiktionary
Coined by Kurt Vonnegut, in the novel Cat’s Cradle. Noun. karass (plural karasses) A network or group of people who are somehow affiliated or linked spiritually. 1963, Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing.
Here’s an example of a 2010 sighting:
https://benslavic.com/blog/dale-crum-sighting/