Rob's best friend

Mike and Gary at my 40th birthday party.

We learned tonight that Rob's best friend since third grade, Gary Govelitz, has died of a massive stroke.

Gary and Rob were pretty much opposites. Rob was the brainy, quiet kid and Gary was the outrageous clown. Rob tells a story of a teacher tying Gary to a chair once. I can only imagine what he did.

Rob and all the rest of the New Jersey gang grew up; Gary really never did. It was always worth our while to foot the bill for Gary just to have him along.

He married his high school sweetheart, who didn't seem to mind that she was living with an over-age adolescent. She found it charming and fun most of the time.

We all have tons of Gary stories -- like when he decided to build a man cave and knocked down a wall in his house without first checking to see whether it was a load-bearing wall. Fortunately for him, it wasn't

He was a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy who would start a project and then get bored with it. Classic ADHD, really. Smart but never quite focused.

Gary loved to think big. He planned the softball team picnic every year, and he always wanted to roast a suckling pig. He planned "manly weekends" when the Jersey Boys went to baseball games or spent the weekend partying in the vacation house where his brother was part-owner. There was always some kind of minor disaster, but no one was ever seriously injured.

He once planned a weekend canoe trip and showed up with a cooler full of lasagne, which he planned to heat over the campfire, I think. The canoe capsized and it was a miracle no one was hurt.

Gary loved good food and he loved to cook. It wasn't always successful, but the effort was fun.

During our annual vacations at the Jersey Shore, Gary orchestrated gigantic dinners. Homemade pasta, a variety of sauces , bread, wine ... He never bought the ingredients -- we all did. And he got all of us to work on it with him. It was an all-day affair with breaks for beach volleyball and gin and tonics. When it was all over, Gary usually collapsed, exhausted, onto the couch while we all cleaned up.

Gary also loved things that went boom. In New Jersey, fireworks are illegal, but that didn't always stop Gary and the guys.

I have a photo of Gary sitting at a table at a beach house, emptying the powder out of 200 tiny firecrackers into a paper bag, which he called a bomb. It wasn't all he dreamed of, but it did make a big noise when it went up on the beach late at night.

Gary was in charge of the Halloween party for about 25 years. His horror houses were great. He thought of the theme and Fran McKeown helped him build. She swore every year she would never do it again because it was just too much work. But then the result was amazing every year.

Gary once said he wanted all of us to throw a party when he died, and we should have T-shirts made up that say, "I survived Gary's funeral."

I'll look into that in the morning.