I really need to say a few words about JBadger.
For people who've been attending cons since the early days, JBadger was almost a permanent fixture of the furry scene. He's a guy who was always there, someone you could count on to be on hand for a chat or to have some fursuit fun in the hotel lobby. He helped out on a staff level and was tireless in his generosity and kindness - a genuine gentleman.
Although I recall seeing him around since my early days of con-going, it was MFF 2010 before we actually got chatting. He was at the fursuit games wearing Sherbert, a donkey suit he had recently bought, and he came over to me asking if I could help him get some water. I took a few photos of him and we talked a bit a couple times during that con. A few months later I bought a fursuit from the same maker as Sherbert, so when I next met JBadger at AC '11 we made sure to get some photos together.
And over the next few years I was lucky enough to see him quite a bit. Aside from AC and multiple MFFs, he also came over to Europe a couple of times. He was at Confuzzled in 2012 ( when the above photo was taken ) and I have some great memories from that con - him feeding the fish in the hotel lake while in fursuit, and him walking along a busy road wearing Sherbert while searching for a geocache.
I took a trip to New York later that same year and he was kind enough to meet up with me in Manhattan, taking me & a couple of friends down to Chinatown, across the Manhattan bridge, and around Central Park. It was a blazing hot day but his company made it a fun experience.
I still reckon he led us across the Manhattan Bridge because he was looking for some geocaches! :)
I roomed with him at Eurofurence in 2014 and we spent a day before the con exploring central Berlin, seeing the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust memorial, and the remains of the Berlin Wall. Early the next morning he hired out a bicycle at around 7am so he could go biking in the city - I was too tired to join him for that, which I regret now. Apparently he got into trouble with a Berlin traffic cop for breaking a red light that day - naughty badger! :)
He was a great roomie at EF, even if his side of the room was a little chaotical ( hehehe ) with various stuff everywhere. Never before had I seen so much stuff come out of one suitcase, or someone tidy up so quickly on the last day. In 15 mins, everything that had been scattered on the floor was squeezed back into his case before he called for an Uber. He was clearly a seasoned con-goer! :)
The last time I saw him was at MFF '15. He had a new fursuit, a bat, and I took quite a few pics of him. We ate out as part of a group at the nearby German restaurant, but the noise level made it difficult to chat.
I never said goodbye to him on the last day. I saw him across the lobby but I was on the escalator with a heavy case and thought "no need to say goodbye - I see him all the time."
But I'll never see him again.
JBadger lost his battle with cancer in late May 2016.
It seems oddly fitting that when he finally passed, it was on a weekend when no less than 6 furry cons were in progress. And I can guarantee you that at every single one of those cons, people were sitting around tables chatting about him, telling stories about the fun times they had in his company and how much he'll be missed in the fandom. A towering legacy for sure.
He went by many names - Nomcrunch, Sherbert, Chef Sam, Spoopy - but ultimately he was JBadger, Mr. Lincoln Kliman, and he was unique. More than that, he was my friend.
And I'm going to miss him.