Tributes to Chuch Harris

A selection of tributes to Chuch Harris, who died on 6 July

Avedon Carol posted the following on rec.arts.sf.fandom on Wednesday 6 July:

Yes, it's just what you think, I'm afraid. Sue called just a moment ago and told me, "Charlie's dead, love."

Well, what can I say? He meant the world to me, he added much-needed levity when things were bleak and painful, and there were moments where he made fandom worth sticking with when I seriously questioned the point. He was my Fanfather, you know. He welcomed me with open arms when I moved to Britain and....

Oh, shit. Someone else will have to do it, I really can't say it.

But Sue says he died in his favorite chair, went quick, and thank god he never had to go to the hospital or any of that because he really hated it, being deaf and all and not being able to tell what was going on around him half the time. She always wanted to get rid of that chair, and had talked about moving to a smaller place, but he said, "There's only one way you'll ever get me out of here," and she's glad he never had to move, too. So am I. She says it probably won't really hit her 'til after the funeral but right now thank god she's got the family and they're all being supportive. And she said she'd call James herself, but asked me to tell you.

Damn, I loved that old goat.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden followed up with:

Along with Rob and Avedon, Teresa and I drove up to Daventry to visit Chuck and Sue just two weeks ago today. Chuck was his old, enthusiastic, anarchic self, but it was clear he was slowing down. As we pulled out at the evening's end, I think we all felt a pang: could this be the last time? It was.

Chuck never got the hang of email and Usenet, so many of you will have to take our word for it when we talk about how wonderful he was. Some of it comes across in his fanwriting -- a fistful of brilliantly funny semi- formal articles and a great deal of coruscating, uninhibited stream-of- consciousness, much of the latter nominally in the form of columns and LoCs.

Chuck lost all of his hearing in the military, in the 1940s, and this configured the rest of his life. I will not say it never got him down, or that he never let it bother him, because that would be exactly the sort of sentimental cant he would make merciless fun of. What there was about Chuck...well, in a real sense, it was that quality summed up in the proverb "perfect love driveth out fear." Chuck loved the things he loved -- his family, his friends, fandom -- and was so grounded in these things that he often seemed completely fearless about everything else. He would say anything, and frequently did. To be around Chuck in public was to constantly alternate between being mortified and nearly dying of laughter. He knew what was really important. I will miss him terribly.

And Rob Hansen added:

When Avedon phoned me at work and said, "Sue Harris just rang..." I knew what was coming next. Damn. I'm profoundly grateful that he went the way he did and that he didn't have to suffer through what Vince did, but it doesn't make it any easier to take.

I met Chuck in the very early '80s, around the same time I met Vince Clarke and ATom, and - like so many - I liked him immediately. When Avedon and I used to make the periodic trek over Vince's place for meetings of Kent TruFandom, it was always Chuck or ATom who would be there waiting in their cars to whisk us away as soon as the Woolwich Ferry docked. They were always lots of fun those meetings, held in the ultra-fannish surroundings of Vince's fan-room, the ATom and Chuch double-act usually in full flow, keeping the rest of us laughing as we scribbled notes for Chuch on the many clipboards provided by the ever-thoughtful Vince. They were my personal trinity of fannish elders, those three, warm, witty, wonderful guys who epitomised what fandom can be and what it should be, and I feel priveleged to have been their friend. Now, with Chuck's death, they're all gone, an era has passed, and I feel diminished.

There's an affectionate portrait of Chuch (loosely disguised as "The Shaper") in The Reaffirmation, by Rob Hansen.

-- Mike Scott

8 July 1999