Many Miles

And a bird impaled to the wall.

I dare say for certainty that I've known AlanF for probably decades before you encountered him here. Anyone acting as you described is screaming torture they've experienced.
Sometimes it's not enough to walk in another man's shoes. Sometimes you have to feel their feet walking in their shoes, a thing most of us are untrained to do. But fellow feeling would have us recognize a tortured soul when it's screaming at us. Bullies aren't born; they're made, and typically they didn't ask to be made. Rather, it was done to them. That's not to say AlanF was a bully, but in a text only format it could come across that way. In real life the man would stand up for the downtrodden every time. Every single time. Particularly if he saw someone being intellectually manipulated. He'd jump into that like a dog on a snake!

He could be tough, and rightly so. For instance, anyone who held a belief they would attempt to persuade others to believe, he held to an extremely high level of academic rigor, evidence and logically sound conclusions. It didn't matter if you were a friend. He held everyone attempting to teach to the same standard. He held himself to that standard too. In his mind if you taught but failed to stand up and defend what you taught, you were a coward and he'd say so in just that many words. He had  more respect for fools who'd stand up for foolish teachings than he did for teachers who refused to be transparent and stand and answer for what they taught.
His sense of humor was a bit dry and high-brow. To really see and feel his sense of humor you had to meet him in person. It rarely, if ever, came across in text-only formats, except for those who knew him in person and understood his humor. AlanF was a product of his raising, environment and high personal drive to know what could be known.

AlanF would talk about Neo-Babylonian chronology until my eyes glazed and my ears were bleeding, and he'd still only be at the start of what he wanted to share. I'd have to open a bottle of fine wine and break off a piece of well-molded and stinky cheese to get him on another topic so I could rest.

Hey! Don't make fun of my favorite punch line!
PLUS, it's true!

Oh, don't get me started! I can hear,
"Have you ever been in earshot of a grandfather joke? Call 1-800 blah, blah, blah, and get in line for your huge payout! Get what's coming to you! Call now! Don't wait! Time limits are closing! Call NOW! NOW!"

OMG! Way more than a total mess. The lunatics would come out! There wouldn't be sufficient moderator controls for the tsunami release of pent-up raw emotion. The server facilities would be smoked! There'd be hands sticking out of windows waving white handkerchiefs.

OMG! Way more than a total mess. The lunatics would come out! There wouldn't be sufficient moderator controls for the tsunami release of pent-up raw emotion. The server facilities would be smoked! There'd be hands sticking out of windows waving white handkerchiefs.

Not holding my breath for that one, at least not for a comment section that publishes publicly.

Hey! Don't make fun of my favorite punch line!
PLUS, it's true!

Oh, don't get me started! I can hear,
"Have you ever been in earshot of a grandfather joke? Call 1-800 blah, blah, blah, and get in line for your huge payout! Get what's coming to you! Call now! Don't wait! Time limits are closing! Call NOW! NOW!"

Tom you have treated me with vitriolic contempt with every braindead word you write! How is that not mean-spirited to those two working brain cells you're rubbing together? Did you lose one of them? LOL

Hey! Don't make fun of my favorite punch line!
PLUS, it's true!

Oh, don't get me started! I can hear,
"Have you ever been in earshot of a grandfather joke? Call 1-800 blah, blah, blah, and get in line for your huge payout! Get what's coming to you! Call now! Don't wait! Time limits are closing! Call NOW! NOW!"

Then there was the one of the grizzled farmer collecting his mail-order wife. Riding home, the horse evaded a mouse and jostled the carriage. ‘That’s one!’ the fellow said.
It later pulled through a puddle and splashed the riders. ‘That’s two!’ he said.
Then it strode beneath a low branch which slapped the riders. ‘That’s three!’ he said, stopped the carriage and shot the horse.
’What did you do that for?’ his new wife cried.
‘That’s one!’ he said.

Oh dear. Show me where. I’ll fix it.

First warning!!! LOL

Tom you have treated me with vitriolic contempt with every braindead word you write! How is that not mean-spirited to those two working brain cells you're rubbing together? Did you lose one of them? LOL

When AlanF, in full evolutionist mode, savaging anyone who ‘refused to learn,’ made a similar statement, I said, “It’s just you and me, you blowhard! plus maybe a half-dozen more. What! Do you think you are Clarence Darrow, arguing Inherit the Wind?’
Quite a mission you’ve chosen for yourself. Are you having success?
’Come here, come here, gather round—so I can tell you why you shouldn’t be here!’
Yeah. Everyone has their own reason for being here. I use the site as a writing workshop and some of what I create here later appears elsewhere in better form. Meanwhile, I rub shoulders, learn, and share, just like you. Notwithstanding some occasional trash-talking, hopefully I am never mean-spirited in doing so.

I wasn't saying AlanF presented as Billy the Kid but, rather, that he identified as Billy the Kid. Isn't that considered real these days?

That is such an understatement. Problem is, there is so much to learn and we are so puny in the universe my fear is we're not sufficiently intelligent to learn what there is to know.

I'm not really that interested in whatever historical soap opera of this forum. Every social platform (including real life in-person platforms) has their share of drama, not to mention foibles we learn of individuals (including our own) along the way. Just rubbing elbows in any forum where I can learn and share is the more important thing to me.

That is such an understatement. Problem is, there is so much to learn and we are so puny in the universe my fear is we're not sufficiently intelligent to learn what there is to know.

I'm not really that interested in whatever historical soap opera of this forum. Every social platform (including real life in-person platforms) has their share of drama, not to mention foibles we learn of individuals (including our own) along the way. Just rubbing elbows in any forum where I can learn and share is the more important thing to me.

Oops. I thought Thinking was being humorous about AlanF and Billy the Kid, and I responded in kind. I had no idea this forum had a contributor "Billy the Kid". In that case I have to agree with Tom. There is no way AlanF would use a sock-puppet on a forum. Wasn't his style, at all.