Do we know this person?

[dreamshark]

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_13725514?nclick_check=1

His name is on our incorporation papers. Same guy?

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

It's spelled the same way, but there's no picture and no other reference. Scary if it is.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I did a little more digging around and I'm pretty sure it's him. It's not that common a name and the age is about right. I found his yearbook picture from 1960 (Madison, WI) and thought it looked vaguely familiar. I found a cute picture of the Madison Gerry from 1945, and it gave his birthday: August 5, 1942. Einblatt still lists our Gerry's birthday - and it's August 6. Okay, it would be better if both dates were exactly the same, but I think it's the same guy.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

This is all very sad and distressing. I hate to think of people in my own circles being capable of that kind of violence.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

I can't follow that link at all -- I get weird error messages and warnings. Who/what are you talking about?

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Oddly, the link works this morning, although last night it wouldn't work at all, including giving me an error message about an insecure site. Weird.

[pameladean]

It's doing that to me right now. Weirder.

P.

[carbonel]

There wasn't a picture, or I could answer with more assurance, but the age sounds about right.

He used to be a Minicon regular and IIRC an occasional Minn-stf meeting attendee, but I remember him best from an incident at a con where Geri Sullivan noticed that he had a gun tucked into the back of his pants. (This was years before the concealed carry law was changed.) The memory is hazy, but I believe Geri persuaded him to take the gun elsewhere.

Very sad, if so.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

When I heard this on the news, I wondered. But the name is right, and I'm almost sure that the wife of the guy we know was Jean.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I didn't know him well at all, but I think I met one of his alternate personalities: King Oberon. Not threatening at all, but really creepy. To be honest, that's why I've remembered his name all these years. King Oberon made an impression.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I knew him fairly well for a period 30+ years ago, as he and Lee were quite friendly. We have always said the hi-how-are-you-nice-to-see-you at Minicon and such over the years, but my last actual conversation with him was probably at least that 30 years ago. He struck me as depressed, not creepy, but I don't know that King Oberon persona.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

A very belated reply, now that I've seen this thread.

Steve St. Onge was the gun carrier, not Gerry Wassenaar. I didn't notice the gun tucked in his pants -- mgs and someone else saw the gun when Steve was leaning over during the Sunday night Dead Dog at the Leamington back at Minicon 18 in 1984. Martin talked with me because he was aware that I knew and seemed friendly with Steve. (Steve had just moved to Mpls from California. I think he was in Minneapa at the time, but lots of people didn't know him very well at that Minicon.)

I knew him well enough to walk up and give him a hug in such a manner that my hand more or less naturally touched the gun through his clothing, giving me the opportunity to ask, "What's that?"

"You know what it is," Steve responded. "We need to talk," I said, and so we did. We ended up locking up the gun in the room we were using for secure storage that night, returning it to Steve when he left the party (and hotel). We also gave him the option of leaving the party immediately, but made it clear that we welcomed him staying so long as the gun wasn't at the party, too.

While the gun was in secure storage, some other well-known Minn-stf members decided it needed to be checked for ammunition and then emptied of it. They did that without consulting Steve, and I happened to walk into the secure storage room when they did. That freaked me considerably -- it was just 3 years after Louise Sullivan's suicide, and people holding guns in a firing position (even pointed down and away from the people in the room) were too much of a flashback for my mental well-being.

In retrospect, I consider my own way of confronting Steve to have been remarkably foolish, and the other fen handling the gun after we had "locked it safely away" to have been even more so. At the very least, it was a breaking of the trust Steve gave us when he handed his gun over to Minicon's safe-keeping. If we wanted the ammunition removed if there was any, we should have gone and asked him, and then had him doing the removing. He was angry that we'd removed the ammo when he retrieved both the gun and ammo from us.

Fortunately, no long term harm that I'm aware of came of the incident.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

How sad. One of the news stories mentioned their son.

K.