Brian A. Hetrick

Brian Anthony Hetrick, born 15 April 1954, died on 15 July 2023 after a brief exchange of snide words with cancer. He died as he lived: playfully, joyfully, whole-heartedly, and with a fair number of cardboard boxes stuffed with inactive but not quite yet abandoned enthusiasms.

He was preceded in death by his parents James C. and Clara A. (Anthony) Hetrick as well as several tens of billions of other humans. He is survived by his brother George C. Hetrick and his children David V. and Lex B. Hetrick, along with about eight billion other other humans. Many others not mentioned here were significant and much-loved parts of his life.

Brian somehow managed to survive his time attending Calasanctius School, The College of the Holy Cross, and The Johns Hopkins University. He also survived the gig market during ten years of economic collapse and, prior to that, several corporate buy-outs; he did much more than survive his 25 years with Digital Equipment Corporation and remembered it fondly for the rest of his days. He was a steadfast Eisenhower Republican, which these days put him somewhere between the Greens and the Democratic Socialists. He was deeply grateful for his time on this planet although he had hoped to see humans make it to that big red thing a little farther away from the star. He delighted in playing with computers, his children, and the English language, often all at the same time. He took photographs of lichen instead of mountain peaks. He was courteous and polite to service staff. He was a dedicated (and possibly effective) parent, a pack rat, a mentor, and a dreamer whose ideas were grander than his ability to deliver. On the other hand, he more or less did those things he actually set out to do.

In lieu of flowers he asked that you donate to your local food bank because living is hard to do without eating at some point.