Another good friend gone too soon. Lee Stevens ----- Original Message ----- From: Cheryl Jones<mailto:cs.jo...@verizon.net> To: Lee Stevens<mailto:sldstev...@msn.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 9:34 PM Subject: More on Larry
Larry Flemming, NSS # 17092, suffered a heart attack and passed away on February 23, 2011. Larry lived in Anchorage, Alaska and was a member of the Gypsy Underground Grotto. Details of services are unknown to me at the moment. I received the following tribute from Emily Davis: "I first met Larry Flemming in the mid 1970s. We got along well immediately. He had a quirky sense of humor and teased me the way my older brother and father did. Our political views were very different but this only was the subject of interesting discussions and exploration of common ground from differing perspectives and never caused friction in our friendship. We saw each other fairly often and caved in NY and WV. He helped with the 1979 NSS Pittsfield Mass. convention. I lost track of him for a few years while he stepped back from caving but he surfaced again in the mid 80s. We hit it off as though he had never taken a hiatus from caving. In 1994 Larry joined Carl Snyder and me on a trip to Australia. We visited a bat research and rescue center in Queensland, went caving in Chillagoe and rented a "bareboat" charter. This would become very important later. Larry really knew very little about sailing but took a lesson and was Carl's second on the three days of sailing a 24' boat. Over the next 16 years I spent time with Larry including a trip to Costa Rica where we mapped the deepest cave in the country with Ed and Eddy Keyes. He managed to get away to Switzerland for the International Congress in 1997. Larry worked with us in Hawaii mapping caves and as a field assistant for Diana Northup in both 2008 and 2010. He donated generously in both time and money to the Cave Conservancy of Hawai'i. Larry was an accomplished diver with instructor certification. He dived in Australia and on many other diving trips with his only major problem being a broken foot when he had a misstep getting off of a boat. (He spent the rest of the trip in a hammock being waited on by local women, so I was told.) He traveled with Dwight and Mary Deal on a karst tour in China.He spent 2 years in Gabon building schools with the Peace Core and traveled around Africa after his time was over with the Core. Larry was a project coordinator at McMurdo Station in Antarctica and later on projects in Alaska. Larry was not shy of adventure and travel but he wanted more. A few years ago when Mike Warner and I went to Alaska to hike and tour with him he told us he was going to sell everything and buy a sail boat so he could sail around the world. Last year he traveled to Camden Maine and found his 52' boat. He purchased the boat and started the process. Larry planned to cave with us in Hawaii in mid February this year but called and said he doubted he could come. We got an email only a few days before his death that he just could not make it because he had far too much to get done in the process of selling his home and posessions so he could start his new life. I will miss Larry for the rest of my life, and I am sure others will carry his memory through theirs. He was a good friend to many; honest, true, giving and opinionated." Emily Davis
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