Saturday, December 18, 2021
My condolences to Gary's family. Gary was a great guy. I met him when I came to work as a reporter at The Houston Post straight out of college. Gary helped this greenhorn learn the craft of journalism. But I want to share a quick story about his dry wit, a facet of Gary's personality I really loved. At one point, I began doing oddball stories as a mini-beat -- an obituary on a gorilla, a piece about people who did not own TVs, that sort of thing. I got the idea it would be fun to do a story about people who had had imaginary friends in childhood. The only way I knew to gather string for this story was to tell everyone I came across what I was up to and ask, "Did you have an imaginary friend?" When I asked Gary, he replied with poker face, "You mean somebody I thought was my friend but who turned out not to be?" I miss him.
