Eric Larson

Fr John R Blaker posted on FB that his close friend, and sometime my friend also, Eric Larson, "has taken his own life. His wife Pat Larson had cardiac arrest on December 23 and was 20 minutes without pulse. She was on life support with no brain function until a few days ago."

I'm so very sorry about all of this. I hadn't seen Eric in many years - probably since before he was married; I knew he had been but I don't recall ever having met Pat - but he and John and I were part of a circle of undergraduate science-fiction fans at UC Berkeley in the late 1970s. That's where I knew Eric best from.

We had two Erics in the group. The other was called Eric the Red for his hair color. Eric Larson was Eric the Large. He was very tall, and broadly built, and he had an immeasurably deep voice, which he later parlayed into a role as the PA Voice of God at various sf convention costume presentations.

Eric was a friendly guy, pleasant to be around, a valued member of our little community. Bless his memory.