JOHN STONE, 62

The creator of Curbstone Critic died Tuesday afternoon. He was a photographer, a pilot, an educator, an oddball, an iconoclast.

Tony Messenger has the update from this story about Stone's death.

Last year we wrote a magazine piece about local bloggers; here's the lede:

FORTIFIED BY a pull on his cigarette and a swallow of his beer, John Stone surveys his companions for the evening -- a dozen men and women, most of them in the full vigor of their 30s and thus a generation younger than Stone, a retired biologist and geneticist. He is 62 and sometimes grumbles about being the "grandpa of the group." But only sometimes; he has come to look forward to the first and third Tuesdays of each month and this gathering of unlikely futurists at the Patton Alley Pub in downtown Springfield.

Stone is the author of the Curbstone Critic and a member in good standing of the Springfield Bloggers; a steady face at the group's meetings, he also documents the sitdowns through the lens of his Canon EOS-30 ...

We'll miss the sumbitch, though it sounds like he died doing what he enjoyed. And dammit, now he knows what happens next. Stoner, if you get the chance, give us the lowdown.

Updated @ 1:30 p.m.
From other bloggers:

•Snarling Marmot describes Stone as "just too damn smart for his own good." Amen, sister.

•Andy at Rhetorica (and leader of the local bloggers meetings) is "deeply saddened by the death of a man I counted among my friends."

•Larry at Simple Thoughts notes: "I believe he would love the fact that we are all talking about him."

•The bad-ass known as Strannix @ Welcome to the Revolution offers this: "He was a frequent visitor here at WttR, and one of the first to add me to his blogroll. So, though I never even met the man, it is not too much to say that he was an early godfather to this blog, and he will be missed."

•Over at Life in the Garden, there is this: "We didn’t always agree with his viewpoint, but it made for interesting reading."

•Zach, who is still here, says "I don’t know where ol’ Stone is right now but I hope he is happy." And drinking a beer.