Friday, March 28, 2014

From Bill Tucker

It is with great sadness and fondness that I write this now about Gary. He was just awesome. There is no other way to describe him. I feel so lucky to have interacted with him in so many ways. He was guru, friend, supporter, co-conspirator, bouncing board, laugh and smile machine and co-empathiser. I'm not sure what I did for him, other than run with whatever he threw my way, which was a lot. He was always there for me, and I hope that the reverse was true. As we worked together more closely last year, I saw more parallels, personal and professional, and that made his passing that much more tragic.

So, my history with Gary began when I started the PhD at UCT with Edwin back around 2001. Gary was a part of the CVC lab (collaborative visual computing) and I'm trying to remember why I roped him in as co-super. I think it was his budding interest in ICT for development, and the mobile stuff, too. He would come to the meetings with bridges.org and the like, and be busy beavering away with his latest handheld or Apple device. I knew he was still with us, though, because his greatest skill as an academic was the ability to chime in with precise surgical input at the most crucial times. For example, with my thesis, he read it fast and made minimal suggestions that shaped the argument just so. I still remember us looking at the whiteboard results of one of these large multi-group meetings and he pointed out that my thesis was staring me in the face. Gary also set me up with supreme collaborators: Murray for the wifi, and Nic for the ethno. We co-super'd Andrew's M before he upgraded, and had some stumbling blocks that were quickly overcome. All this is work-related, because hey, that's where our relationship originated. Then there was music, wine, coffee, hanging with him and Gil at Dave and Ilda's wedding, the kids. Oh, I'll always remember the advice he gave me when Jedd was coming along, something like there are no words to describe what is about to happen to you. You have no idea! I pass that on regularly.

The funny thing is that Gary was younger than me, yet he'd already done and inspired so much. He was so unassuming, and one could easily misinterpret that as arrogance. It wasn't. He was as genuine as it gets. I think he knew how much he did for us. He was just so happy to see us do it. It was always win-win with Gary.

So many parallels - two foreigners in Cape Town, married to white Africans, for so many years, wanting to supervise ourselves out of a job. Believing in Africa. I don't know how to fully convey my appreciation and respect for you, Gary. I really miss you, and I'm really glad we got to hang together for so long, and do so much together. It was really, really cool.