thatcrazycajun | In Memoriam: John "Jack" Stocker, Ph.D., ?-2009

Another of my oldest fannish friends from back home is gone: Dr. Jack Stocker has died of a massive stroke, age unknown, at a hospital in New Orleans, LA two days ago. He was a professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans, a longtime member and officer of the American Chemical Society, a book dealer at conventions throughout the southeast and faculty sponsor of UNO's student SF/fantasy club, Survivors of the Big Bang or SOB2. He was also one of the many residents of the city's now nationally infamous Ninth Ward who lost their homes and possessions to the post-Katrina floods nearly four years ago. He was still trying to rebuild his destroyed personal library (heavy with genre fiction, as you can imagine) when he passed.

"Dr. J" was a welcome, genial presence at many of the cons I attended regularly in the deep South when I lived in Louisiana, including the very first one I attended, the fifth of the now-defunct Vul-Con series in downtown N.O. His son, Daniel, caught his dad's love of fantastic fiction and was also around for club meetings, cons and other events. He was a frequent panelist at cons on science fact and fiction both, and could hold forth for hours intelligently and knowledgeably. He was also one of the people who went out of his way to be kind to me when I was learning my way around fandom in the mid-'70s to early '80s.

My thanks to mutual friend Frank Schiavo for passing along the sad news via Facebook; his entry is here. In all the years I knew Jack, I never once heard anyone say a single bad thing about him; and few people can boast that at the end of their lives. Bon soir, mon cher ami, et merci beaucoup.