So Long for Now, Pops
Gulfport Warrior Poet Stone Handy Dead at 74 By Abby Baker
STONE HANDY
“If you ain’t smiling when you’re playing drums, you ain’t doin’ it right,” Handy wrote on Facebook in 2010.
Those who know downtown Gulfport know the drummings and spoken word of Gulfport fixture Stone Handy. After his health rapidly deteriorated in relation to heart failure, Handy died on Sunday, Jan. 2. He was 74. Handy’s son, Jerry, 48, survives him. In the wake of his father’s death, Jerry finds himself surrounded with volumes of journals and poems penned by his dad. “He was a warrior poet,” Jerry said. “He was both a military man and a
philosopher ... I don’t know how to put it any other way than that.” Handy’s written journals surprise no one; Gulfportians know him as a spoken word poet who performed regularly at The Blueberry Patch and SumitrA Espresso Lounge+. Many of his musings delved into freedom, political ideologies and his veteran status. SumitrA owner Maurice Loeb says he saw Handy daily at the coffee shop. Handy never skipped a cup of joe, and he never missed an oppor-
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tunity to perform. “He would play the drums, but I think he was more known as a poet,” Loeb said. “I mean, he wrote a tremendous amount of poetry.” Loeb knew Handy as more than a poet, too, adding that Handy would “give you the shirt off his back and he was a mentor for a lot of the younger individuals around town.” Before Handy settled in as a Gulfport writer, he started life in Michigan. Born Stephen Handy, to Edith and Bruce Handy, Handy joined the Marines in 1966, serving in Viet Nam. He later joined the U.S. Coast Guard, which brought him to Florida. Eventually – only 10 years ago – Handy settled in Gulfport. Retired Stone spent much of his time involved with Operation Regroup, a Gulfport nonprofit dedicated to providing safe events and activities for veterans recovering from trauma. Handy served once more, this time as a father figure for many of the younger members of Operation Regroup, says Jarred Proctor, veteran and friend of Handy. “He was more of a father to me than my own dad,” Proctor said. “He was like a village elder ... no one is going to be able to fill his boots, but I hope the city immortalizes him somehow.” According to Proctor and others, Handy’s hard-sticking nickname became “Pops.” “He died the way he lived, his way,” Jerry said. “Ultimately he had a love affair with Gulfport. He loved the people, all he wanted to do was stay close to his tribe, his village in Gulfport.”
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