Fan Gallery Contents: Jay Haldeman

"Jack C. Haldeman II, universally known as "Jay," was one of the first friends I ever made in fandom... He was a sweet man, mellow and gentle, laid-back and self-effacing to the point where he could sometimes be easy to overlook--but his sharp, twinkling eyes missed nothing, and his wry humor was always bubbling just below the surface, and if you underestimated him, you were making a mistake he was too much of a gentleman to point out, although he would be wryly amused by it, as he was by most of life. Jay never took himself, or the game of life, too seriously, and it was hard to take yourself too seriously either when you were around him.

"Jay liked to play the role of Good Old Boy or Shaggy Rural Hippie, but he was an educated man with a degree in life sciences from Johns Hopkins University who worked in technical jobs as a biological researcher or medical technologist on and off throughout his entire life... You'd never learn about any of this stuff from Jay, though, who was one of the least boastful of men. Jay preferred to kick back and enjoy life in his own mellow, easy-going way.

"I like to remember him as I saw him at hundreds of convention parties and private social gatherings over more than thirty years, sitting against the wall with a cigarette smoldering in one hand and a can of beer in the other, alertly following every twist of the conversation, mostly quiet, but always laughing. I can't remember Jay ever telling many jokes himself; his partial deafness made him shy in public. But he was one of the Great Laughs of his generation. The rest of us were all a lot funnier when Jay was in the room.

"He loved life and lived it well. He loved people and was loved by many of them in return. You can't do much better for an epitaph than that."