I opened Bob Pease's e-mail responding to my column revealing my cancer. And cried. "Rather than wait until you are gone and then say good things about you," he began, "I'll just throw in a few comments now.

"George, I have enjoyed all sorts of your humor, over many years. Heckling business and marketing practices in the electronics industry-raising comments that invoke "common sense" and the atrocious lack of same-was your specialty. Still is. Keep it up!

"These days, in three or six frames, Scott Adams has taken over a lot of that task. Hey, he gets more than a thousand e-mailed ideas and suggestions every day.

No wonder he has a lot of good ideas. But when done in words-by you- you're still the best. Irony in word and irony in cartoon drawings are slightly different art forms.

"Keep up the good humor! Thanks for being a friend. And thanks for heckling me and hitting me with so many good-and bad-jokes!"

Pease, who works as a staff scientist at National Semiconductor Corp., is a friend of many years, though we've seen each other face to face and spoken only a few times. And he by no means has he been alone in sending me such tear-provoking greetings.

However imminent my departure might be, such comments have kept me going. They have made me glow with the pleasure of knowing that, indeed, I have reached people out there who have shared some of me.

Many years ago, in another publication, I wrote a public love letter to Lotte Lehmann and revealed that I had always been madly in love with this thrilling soprano.

Her exciting voice had brought me endless joy. However, I had never told her. I had never stopped by her home in Santa Barbara to thank her with a bouquet of roses. And it was too late. She had just died at the age of 88.

I later learned that Tektronix had printed "You Dun Good" forms for people who were too shy or too embarrassed to use their own words to tell a colleague-or any fellow human-that they admired that person or admired something he or she had done.

We live on a planet whose tenants have much to be ashamed of. Wouldn't we make it a bit better if we were to say nice things to each other once in awhile, without waiting for an imminent departure?

George Rostky is editor emeritus of EE Times. He can be reached at g_rostky@hotmail.com.