I don't remember when I first met Gary. It may have been at WesterColt 45, The Westercon in Phoenix, Arizona in 1988. He was an active LA area fan (a member of LASFS and SCIFI), always helping someone or with something. He was easy to spot, wearing a blue vest with buttons on it (just a few, not enough to be rated for armor), one of the buttons would say "Not Lex Nakashima".
At Noreascon Three, Boston, 1989, he helped Ruth Sachter, John Lorentz and myself with At-Con Registration. He was there nearly as much as the three of us. Helping where needed, making good decisions if necessary to get the members registered, out of Hall A and into the Worldcon where they could enjoy themselves.
After that there wasn't a Worldcon, Westercon or Smofcon that both of us were there that we didn't try to find each other to spend some time visiting, share a meal or help each other with whatever current project we had. We discovered that we were both big Sushi fans. One memorable meal was during the '94 Westercon in LA. We went to an all-you-can-eat-in-an-hour restaurant called Cowboy Sushi. Gary started ordering by picking pieces in order on the menu; I was ordering my favorites. Gary soon switched to ordering the same thing I was. We discovered that this helped the chef prepare the pieces quicker and the whole group was soon in sync.
We had so much fun at that meal that we always tried to find a sushi restaurant at every convention we were both at, no matter what city. Sometimes Gary would research the restaurants in advance, sometimes we would take our chances using the local Yellow Pages. Occasionally, I would return to the same restaurant twice in a trip just to make sure that Gary and I shared a sushi meal. I recently did that at both Bucconeer and Smofcon 16 in Colorado Springs.
At Worldcons and Westercons there would also be "sweet wine" parties. People would contribute an Ice Wein or Trachen Beren Auslese to share among friends. Gary didn't drink quite as much as the other participants, but he enjoyed the get together and always made sure that it wasn't forgotten. He would email people in advance, to help find a good evening (that wasn't overloaded with people working bid parties, etc.), a location (sometimes offering his room), and a supply of plastic glasses.
As I mentioned, Gary often helped with whatever I was involved with. He would help with bid parties for Boston/Orlando in 1998/2001, sometimes even when he could have been helping with an LA area party. Many Boston area fans met him and appreciated his help and his humor. In 1997, Jim Mann asked me to run the Staff Den at LoneStarCon 2. I don't remember whether I asked Gary to help, or if he volunteered first. He was glad to get away from the exhibit work he had been doing at Worldcons, but when they needed his expertise, he explained to me and helped with the setup. But that didn't stop him from feeling bad that he couldn't offer as many hours to me.
Just because Gary helped me, that didn't mean that he wasn't busy with five million other things. He worked hard on all the SCIFI run Westercons, Worldcons, NASFiC, etc. Local LA conventions such as Loscon and Gallifrey, and I'm sure many other conventions when other friends ask him to help. Last Westercon in San Diego I always found him behind the Art Show desk. I'm sure that if he lived on the East Coast, he would have been a valued member of the Floating East Coast Art Show Crew.
A job that he did for LASFS was purchasing books for the LASFS library. He was concerned that he would be missing new NESFA Press books, so he asked how he could get notices of when we would publish new books. Since, at the time, we didn't have a mailing list for announcements; I suggested that by joining NESFA he would find out our publishing schedules by reading Instant Message and never miss a notice. We learned to expect the double order from him for LASFS and his personal collection, to be picked up at Boskone by Bruce Pelz. Soon he enjoyed being a NESFAn, reading about what we were doing, the escapades of Mr. Skunk and other items of interest.
He always wanted to attend a Boskone, but recently it conflicted with the LA area convention, Gallifrey. He told me that maybe next year he could escape and come east in February. Then he was even more interested in coming when he found that there was a Lego store in Waltham. He wanted to know how far away from Framingham, Waltham was. Besides con-running, Gary was a huge Lego fan and collector. When he found the Internet newsgroups, he was excited to find the Lego newsgroup where people would trade hard to find Lego pieces. I'm not sure how he had time for everything.
Gary always had something interesting to talk about. I was fascinated by his knowledge of Chinese heritage and history. It was detailed and complex and Gary immersed himself in learning more with as much intensity as he did everything else. I wish that we talked more about his heritage.
Once you were Gary's friend, you found that he cared about you. It didn't matter if you were 3000 miles away. He was genuinely concerned when I needed help and rejoiced in my good news, when he had a problem or needed help he would email or call to ask my advice. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking that I hadn't heard from him recently. I meant to email him to check on him, but didn't get to it. I'm sorry I didn't. Gary was a good friend; I will miss him a lot.
Sharon Sbarsky