Avignor knew a great deal about everything and could debate the cause for the creation of the known world while extracting the small amount of precious metals left in old electronics by using dangerous chemicals. Or converse insightfully on the evolution of the female human womb while he knit a quilt with the name of every Scottish reiver from the early 7th century to the late 19th century. He was simply breath-taking that way.
It was as if he had lived a hundred lives in his one life and wasn’t pre-possessed to do anything extravagant about it. He simply lived, and worked. And we often talked, at length, about anything and everything.