It's a melancholy day at Dave's Car ID Service, as we bid farewell to one of our most frequent and valued contributors - Andrew Wimsatt. I won't belabor the terrible circustances of his death, which have been discussed in depth online recently. I am as angry and upset about his murder as anyone, but my car ID threads are designed as a sanctuary from the woes of the contemporary world. I would rather spare that anger for a different forum and choose here to focus on Andrew Wimsatt, the human being. He was a relentlessly cheerful and positive soul, I hope you will respect his spirit in your replies. I think our mutual friend @AnnaZ perfectly summed up Andrew as "everybody's biggest fan." His various fandoms include countless bands, visual artists, podcasters, @wethefifth, @reason, @uaustinorg, and @TheFIREorg. And I am humbled that one of his fandoms was Dave's Car ID Service. You may have noticed from reading the various tributes to him over the past few days his adjectives: kind, generous, warm, positive, never had an unkind word about anyone. All true. But he seldom spoke about himself, despite having a very distinguished career as a civil engineer in road materials research. He was far more interested in talking about you, with zero expectation of anything in return. He was the least transactional person in a hyper-transactional world. If you were lucky enough to have Andrew as a fan he was generous with his time and support, and in my case, that support included loads of his old family photos with mystery cars. I can't fully repay my debt to him for that. But I'd like to dedicate this episode of Dave's Car ID Service to him, and use those photos to illustrate the life a genuine mensch.

I am very saddened to learn that my friend @ajwimsatt was incomprehensibly murdered Monday. He was a gentle and generous soul, a frequent contributor to Dave's Car ID Service, and a big supporter of my son's music. He will be greatly missed. fox7austin.com/news/round-ro…