Wapsi Square Forum

My long-time and fellow Southern SF fan Ned Brooks is gone.

Cuyler Warnell Brooks (known to friends as Ned) apparently sustained fatal injuries today when he fell from the roof of his house in Marietta GA while doing maintenance.

I have (sort of) known Ned longer than anyone else i'm still in contact with - in 1968 when i was in C school at the Norfolk Shipyard and Ned was working for NASA as an engineer on their wind tunnel (i can't recall where in Virginia it is right off - annoying), Ned saw my name in a fanzine listing my address at the Shipyard and called; we talked for a while. We met face-to-face for the first time in 1970 at that year's DeepSouthCon (in Atlanta), and i was looking forward to seeing Ned at this year's (first weekend in October).

I just got an e-mail telling me of his death; there are no details yet, it happened this morning and word is traveling through Southern Fandom.

When my SF fan friend Dennis Dolbear died two years ago, and when our friend Don Markstein in 2012, or my friend Hank Reinhardt in 2007, it was a wrench, but they'd all been in hospital with serious problems for some time before it happened, so there was sort of a foreknowledge or preparation.

So long, Ned - gonna miss you.

In this case - i just read his last 'zine for the amateur press alliance SFPA (of which we're both long-time members) yesterday ... and now he's gone.

I am sorry to read this, and I'm sorry for your loss as well.

Condolences. I can relate--hell of a lot of my old friends are gone. I've been saying for 10 years that I thought it would take a lot longer to outlive everybody.

Just by coincidence, my grandmother would be 104 today. Sipping some Jameson 1780 in her honor. She survived Prohibition and my granddad's drinking, and didn't drink herself in my lifetime. But I can cover it for her.

Thanks, folks. One of our friends said today that we pretty much just assumed Ned would go on forever, mildly snarky, calm and amazed by life...

What i just finished writing for SFPA, the amateur press alliance (APA) that Ned and i shared for forty years:

==============================

OUR FRIEND

I've been stalling on writing this - sort of if, as long as i didn't write about it for SFPA, it wouldn't be true.
But it is.

As near as i can recall, i can say that i (more or less) knew Ned Brooks longer than anyone else in my life who isn't part of my family. My first contact with Ned was back in 1969, when i was in Crypto School at Norfolk Navy Shipyard.

I came back to the barracks one day, and i had a phone message - "Call Operator 29" (or whatever number).

Worried that it might be a family emergency, i embarked on a frustrating five or ten minutes of dealing with the minions of TPC*, finally getting connected to a total stranger - somebody named "Ned Brooks".

Ned was, as i was, a member of the N3F in those days, and had seen a CoA for me in the N3F bulletin, and decided to call (he was, as we all know, working at the Langley wind tunnel and living in Virginia)**.

After i went to and came back from Viet Nam, the first weekend of my leave before i went to Sicily happened to be the weekend before Labor Day ... so, more-or-less on the spur of the moment, i decided to attend DSC.

Forty-five years later, i don't definitely recall if Ned was there - but if i didn't meet him face-to-face there, i'm sure i did at DSC in Atlanta in 1972.
We'd run into each other at DSCs and other cons - Kubla, RiverCon and so on.

I got on the SFPA waitlist, of course - i forget when.

Ned was (of course) there.

In September 0f 1975, i joined the roster.

And Ned was there.

And forty years passed.

I met Susan at the first RiverCon. In '76 we moved in together. In '77 we got married.

We went to a lot of cons, and, as likely as not, Ned was there.

Susan and i were in SFPA together for a long time.

And Ned was there.

After fourteen years together, Susan and i split. I kept on with my life as well as i could - and i kept going to cons, i tried to hang on.

And Ned was there.

Twenty-five more years passed after that.

I stayed in SFPA.

And Ned was there.

Along the way, Hank Reinhardt, who i'd known almost as long as i'd known Ned, died, and the tribe gathered for his funeral.
And Ned was there.

And i met Kate along the way, and she went to some cons with me - and we got married in Hunstsville and then went on to Constellation.
And Ned was there.

Just a week or so ago, i got my SFPA mailing, and i opened it,

And Ned was there.

And then i got an e-mail a couple days ago, and i read it.

And Ned ... wasn't there any more.

So many things we think will go on forever - and so many ... don't.

MFIII, Karl Wagner, Khen, GInzer, Hank, Hank, Markstein, Dolbear...

Ned.

I've never gotten drunk. I hate the sensations even beginning to be affected by alcohol gives me.
I won't get drunk now.

But i wish there was something i could do to forget that Ned's not there any more.

I hope to be at DSC.

If i can get to Ned's memorial service, i will.

I will see my friends and we'll remember.

That so many of you are still there.

And i'm still here.

==========================

* This was, after all, a year or so after the release of The President's Analyst.

** Between the last footnote and now is another hour or so of stalling, looking up the movie to get its date and then clicking on all sorts of random-associated links that led to. I really do not want to be writing this.

I found a few photos of Ned that i took at the 2013 DeepSouthCon, here in Atlanta: