By Debbie
Fleming
How many times
have you read this newsletter and seen the name “John Bull” and wondered, “who
is this man?” Well, through some tough negotiations, I have been able to attain
an exclusive interview with the editor of The Immortalist, John
Bull.
Photo: Debbie Fleming
John, with
Alison McCabe, Director of the FABULOUS FLORIDA FOLLIES,
2005.
Please tell us
about yourself. (ie: Family, where you live)
I was born in New York City,
and except for the last fifteen years, lived in the New York area. My wife,
Nevora and I now live in a condo on Florida’s east coast.
When did you
first become interested in Cryonics?
In the late 60’s I was
living on Long Island, New York. One day I stopped at a small gas station for
gas. While paying for the gas, I noticed some flyers on the counter, something
about “Cryonics” which I had never heard of. The Cryonics Society of New York printed
it. I took one home and read it.
Eventually I learned that Curtis Henderson’s father-in-law owned the gas
station. The flyer intrigued me, so I filled out form to receive more
information. The only organization I had ever heard of before with “Society” in
the name was the National Geographic Society. The Cryonics Society had a
Manhattan address, confirming my thinking that this organization was quite
large, probably on a par with the Geographic Society.
Not long after this, I
received a call from a “Mr. Henderson,” inviting me to come and see him the
following Saturday, at his house in Sayville, on Long Island’s south shore. I
should add that nowhere in the flyer or my conversation with Mr. Henderson was
there anything implying that the Cryonics Society was a large organization. It
was all in my head. I envisioned Mr. Henderson as an elderly gentleman, this was
probably his summer house, and we would be sitting on a porch overlooking Great
South Bay, while he explained the cryonics concept.
The
reality was totally opposite from what I expected. The first time I saw Curtis Henderson,
he was standing shirtless, in his driveway, in a working class neighborhood with
a can of Diet Coke in his hand... There were kids, animals and adults all over
the place. Over time, I met many people there I can’t remember many of their
names, but I do remember Harry Waitz, Paul Segall and Saul Kent. Saul seemed
like the most sensible one there.
One fellow said he had a way
to freeze lettuce and when it thawed, was just like fresh. The name of his
company was Negative Entropy, I always liked that name, but It’s nearly forty
years later, and I don’t think they’re selling frozen lettuce
yet.
Curtis Henderson was the
only person I ever knew who had a fully equipped atomic bomb fallout shelter in
his backyard. As I recall, it was stocked with food, water, rifles, ammunition,
and a periscope. The entrance door was at a right angle to the steps leading
down to it, presumably because radioactive rays don’t go around
corners.
I was brought up in a
“proper” English family. When we
had a cat or a dog as a pet, it was always named appropriately, “Spot,” or
“Minnie” or some other suitable name. It blew my mind that Curtis had a cat
named “General Khe,” after some Vietnamese General!
It wasn’t long after this that I met Nick DeBlasio, and Pauline Mandell who had by this time respectively had his wife and her son frozen by Curtis’s organization. Nick eventually bought his own cryostat, and put it in a vault he had built in a New Jersey cemetery. I helped him with the upkeep of his cryostat It contained the body of his wife, and a woman from California. (Pauline Mandell had her son’s body shipped to California. (See “The Early Days,” Sept-Oct 2005) Nick’s cryostat failed twice, the first time we had to take it back to New York, remove the bodies, and reinsert them after the cryostat was repaired. The second time I, with some Funeral Home employees removed the bodies, in the rear yard of a Funeral Home in Brentwood, Long Island. (This contradicts Ken Bly’s account of the incident. See “Now for the rest of the story,” page 16. Mike Darwin was not there, I was there at Nick’s request, and there was no odor on a par with Chatsworth.) Nicks wife’s body was then buried in a local cemetery and the other body was shipped to California. Nick gave his cryostat to Mike Darwin.
For quite a while after
that, I had little involvement with cryonics. I joined the Cryonics Institute in
the early 90s. Sometime after that Mae Ettinger retired as IMMORTALIST
editor. I volunteered for the job,
and if I remember right, there were no other volunteers, so I got the job. I
enjoy the challenges being an Editor creates.
Do you have
any other hobbies?
I have no hobbies, I like to travel, and I’m active in a local theater company. In the past four years, I’ve been in six plays and one Senior Follies. I’m on the Board of a coalition of Condo Associations. I’m also a Hospice volunteer. Over the years, I’ve owned and managed a number of rental properties, this past September; I finally sold the last of them.
How does your
family feel about your desire to be frozen?
My wife and one daughter are totally supportive of my cryonics wishes, however my wife has no interest in it for herself. My other daughter is not interested; she feels the world is coming to an end soon, so why bother. Cryonics is rarely discussed within the family.
Why do you
want to be frozen?
I would like to be
cryopreserved because I think the real history of the world will not begin until
we have mastered space travel and aging. Everything that happens up to that
point, I feel is the preamble.
Who was the person who most influenced you
in your life, and how?
The person who influenced me
the most was a Science teacher I had in High School. Mr. Lenz stressed that everything that
happened in the world had a scientific basis. It was around that time that I lost
whatever interest I had in religion.
So, now you
have a better idea of who John Bull is. I did this interview because I want
others to know that John Bull is more than just a member of CI or the editor of
The Immortalist, he is someone who was around back when the cryonics concept was
first recognized and has since spent his life with an active interest in it. He
may not have contributed scientifically, but he has certainly supported the
movement for many years.
I hope you
enjoyed learning more about the man I affectionately call;
“Dad”.