Birth date: Feb 18, 1951 Death date: Mar 20, 2022
John Charles Stamey, 71, of Syracuse, passed away on March 20, 2022 after a brief illness. John was a graduate of Nottingham High School in 1968 and attended a University in Boston where he lived for several years before returning Read Obituary
John Stamey was the Mercutio of my high school community: a jester, a fighting cock, Mr. Pitiful, defender of ladies honor, and dishonorer of bourgeois conventions, who could never resist the temptation of any situation with dramatic potential.
Fifty-some years since I first met him, he still figures regularly in stories I tell at dinners and in classrooms. He will always have a place in my heart. A big place. A bright one. There can be no other....
Michele Carley Cheung
I miss you, my friend...and it will be impossible to forget your humor and mischievousness.
Mary Siau
Mark and Robert, I hope John passed peacefully. He had suffered so much.
Bob,
Please accept my condolences on your brother's passing.
Knowing he is at peace is a comfort, but it doesn't remove the pain of loosing a sibling.
He had the biggest heart, and tried so very hard to be a good person. He was intentionally kind, and never punched down. I should say something with his sense of dark humor, but I miss him too much to laugh, which is definitely not what he would have wanted. Here, Dad - if there's some way to get some of your ashes to New Hampshire, you can thumb your nose at petty authority one final time - even though it's a bum rap, since you were only holding the chainsaw.
John & me, 1978 at Liz and Richard Handler's wedding:
Carolyn Schuk (Santa Clara, CA) - Sorry this is 3 parts in reverse order:(
There was another side to John, though: his heroic side. This was that John that was always ready to get into a fight when someone impugned the honor of a girl.
And there was the John who was always ready to listen.
He listened to me mope about the boy who broke my heart when I was a senior in high school. John bought me endless cups of coffee back then — his preferred form of comfort food.
He listened to people's sad stories of middle-aged folly and didn’t tell them to grow up or stop being silly. Because John knew about silliness. As he put it, “we all need something foolish and exciting in our lives.”
The psychoanalysts among you probably have lots of explanations for why John was the way he was — why he didn’t take his performing art to the stage, why his behavior was so invariably self-defeating. And as a friend I told him these things. But I am glad that John was John because when I heard his voice on the phone I knew that whatever else was going on in a few minutes I would be laughing.
Oh, Bobby, I wish Richard and I could be there for John’s service. We’re down in NC visiting our daughter. John has been one of my best friends since Mr. Kinslow’s senior English class at Nottingham. As I’ve told him and others, he was the kindest asshole that I’ve ever known. We’ll be back in town in a week. If there’s anything I can do to help after I get home, please let me know. You have my phone number. I’m so sorry. He’s going to be greatly missed. Hugs.
