A Little More About Gary

[Bill Greenwood]

When I found out that Gary and the CAF guys were bringing the B-24 up to EAA Oskosh, I wrote Gary a PM reminding/inviting him to the Warbird picnic. I may have been presumptous, maybe Gary had been to EAA before and knew all about the different events. But so often I have heard from people who go there and don't see more than a slice of what there is available because they really don't move outside their small circle, whether it is warbirds or show center or seaplanes. That's like going to the Louvre and only seeing work by one artist. I really like to share more of it with people, and yes, I probably get carried away.

So I asked Gary to come to the warbird picnic. The polite, but negative answer I got back was something like he had to stay at the B-24. I persisted and said that the party started about 6pm , but he could get there later and surely he wasn't the only one assigned to the plane and not expected to be there 12 hours a day. He wrote back that he really wasn't much fun at parties. I sort of read between the lines, maybe he just didn't want to hang out with me, who knows. But, he's not the only stubborn one, so later, maybe it was even this year I once again asked him and this time I told him about Zachs party for WIXers. I told Gary how nice it was, how much good food they had, and free beer. I got another negative reply from Gary, something like that he really didn't drink beer and wasn't much fun at parties. At that point, I mostly gave up, I may be stubborn, but I am not nuts.

Gary and I wrote some PMs, mostly humorous. He did once send me a serious one, something about govt spending, or a Dem program that he did not like the spending on. I can't recall the specifics, but we had a discussion and I pointed out big spending on the other side. I got into more basic and more background issues, the things that formed my opinions growing up. I sort of hit a dead end with Gary, then I realized that he was too young to have even experienced these things. The civil rights struggle,LBJ, most of the Nixon-Vietnam times, all this was something I lived and it was only something he might have read about or seen on tv. Gary wasn't born when Dr.King was shot, or JFK. So we sort of stopped any serious discussion. There was a time later, after Gary seemed a little down, after he had high of racing at Reno, when I set him a PM to Midland that was intended to be joking around. Right after I sent it I had 2nd thoughts, what if he reads it to be an attack on him, not a joke. Fortunately he got my meaning and wrote back that he had gotten a good laugh out of it and it made his morning.

I didn't have a lot more contact with Gary, I wish I could have. I think some of the issues may have come between us, or we just were not in the same location often.

I was not one of Gary's close friends, but it seemed to me that he was one of the good folks that was more of a giver than a taker, that the world needs more of.

Bill

[Second Air Force]

Bill,

PM sent.

Scott