RIP Jeff Smith
I have been struggling to come up with something to write. It has been over a month since he passed but I have no words. As soon as he was gone, I missed him. He was one of my best friends and I hardly saw him more than 2 or 3 times a year. We talked all the time online and we fought the good fight for MACE and all it’s children. We had kids over the years together and watched each other’s family grow. I feel like we accomplished so much together while at the same time sharing some great moments. I will miss him.
The first time I met Jeff was at Hexacon 1993. I had just started hearing about the various conventions up in the Greensboro area and decided to accompany a friend to see what kind of gaming was there. I paid extra for the picture in the badge. I also signed up for their Killer game but it turned out to be fairly lame (no guns or anything, just flashing pictures) and I do regret that. I don’t remember much after that – I think we played in a GURPs game or something and then left.
Not a memorable moment for either of us. It was not until 1996 that we really connected, at the Cyber Goth party held by the folks behind Roc of Ages. He was working with them to run gaming. We sat and talked for hours. It was then that we knew we were going to be long time friends.
ROC of Ages spun off ROC96.5 and then summarily died after that. ROC96.5 grew into MACE, Jeff’s own personal brain child. I attended all of these, primarily organizing any GMs willing to run games from the UNCC Guild.
In 1999, just after some seriously major changes in my life that had turned my life upside down, the folks from StellarCon as well as Jeff (representing MACE) came to me to ask me to run gaming for them. I had ended a 10 year relationship that year and was in a well of doubt and depression. My career was at a stalemate and I had many doubts I belonged in the Carolinas anymore. My soul was wandering I was deeply questioning my faith (or lack there of) and what I had done with my whole life (or at least the last 10 years). This gave me some direction, at least and made me feel somewhat home in the Carolinas.
Not long after that, I started dating the woman that would become my wife and she joined me on this journey. She shared the good and the bad, the struggles and the triumphs with me. She got to know Jeff and his family as well. We were married in 2002 and started having kids. Jeff was ahead of me by one by that time but we followed that up with three of our own and he had a second. He in fact used the boy name we wanted to use for ours before we could. I say he “stole the name” from us but he really did not know we were going to use it. We found another that worked.
So I took over MACE gaming from Mike B., who moved on to other things, and the rest was history. For 25 years, MACE was the tabletop gaming juggernaut in the region. It expended to a mini-mace game day at restaurants and later at his church. Then we branched out to MACE West and even attempted a MACE East (big failure). Jeff organized vacations behind his Club MACE idea and I even got to go on one in 2015. It was a blast!
MACE was something I just accepted as part of me. I kept on wondering when I was going to stop. I guess I was just waiting for Jeff to get tired of it first. I know he wasn’t. But God had other plans. Game well my friend and may you always roll 20s in heaven! Thanks for everything.
2002 mini-mace
