John Brock died on July 3, 2024, at his home in Orleans after a long fight against COPD and emphysema. He was 71.
Born at Fort Dix, N.J. on Oct. 17, 1952, John was the son of the late Butler Brock and Mary Gaspa Brock. His father was a career soldier; his mother was a hotel manager at the Bull Ring Wharf and a hostess at the Lobster Pot in Provincetown. His parents divorced when he was young.
John loved the sea. He had a small motorboat and fished for striped bass in Provincetown Harbor. Once, his friend Jim MacFarlane recalled, they were fishing in the Cove when a whale surfaced so close to the boat that it pitched John into the water.
John played football and served as student council president at Provincetown High School, graduating in 1971.
Work in restaurants and bars being scarce in the winter, John headed to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and found a job as a waiter at Pier 66. According to Jim, who also worked there, Ray Charles knew John by the sound of his footsteps, and Don Rickles became his friend.
John was always making friends, Jim said. He would “give you the shirt off his back, even when he didn’t have one,” said Jim’s wife, Emily.
John moved to Naples, Fla. to manage the Elephant Walk. There he met Maria Antonelli, with whom he had a daughter, Alexandra. After Maria returned to Pennsylvania with Alexandra, John joined Jim in Florence, Ky. to tend bar. He did not see Alexandra for many years thereafter.
The ocean called to him, however, and John returned to Florida to work in a marina at Fernandina Beach. He later left for Key Largo to be close to his brother, Robert, and to work fishing charters. His last stop in Florida was Key West.
In 2014, John came back to the Outer Cape. When his mother died, Alexandra came to the funeral, and father and daughter were happily reunited, Robert said.
“Not being a part of Alexandra’s life was John’s biggest disappointment,” said Robert. “He was incredibly proud of his daughter.”
Settled in Wellfleet, John worked at the Pearl and sold wild-picked oysters in the winter. He also managed the Shell station in North Truro, but in 2019, increasingly limited by COPD, he retired and moved to Tonset Woods in Orleans.
“The last three years of John’s life were rough,” Jim said. “He couldn’t move around much because he always had to have his oxygen tank with him.” But he remained an enthusiastic Boston sports fan and was delighted to see the Celtics win the NBA championship before he died.
John is survived by his brother, Robert Brock of Provincetown.
A sendoff will be held at the Chapel of St. Peter the Apostle Church Cemetery at 10 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2024.
Donations in John’s honor can be made to the Shaw Fund for Mariners’ Children, Box 194, Newburyport 01950.
