I occasionally worked for Custom Carpet part time during High School when additional muscle help was needed.  There I learned the elementary tasks of carpet installation and cleaning, as I was one of the helpers for the more experienced staff.  Before steam cleaning came about, the carpets were sometimes removed off the floor and brought into the shop where they would be shampooed and then hosed down and lifted entirely off the floor to dry.  Gary was teaching me how to use the shampoo machine and he started the machine and ran it across the carpet a few times.  While it seemed easy, if you did not now that there was a technique in moving the machine, it would through you around.  Gary laughed as he watched the old machine throw me around the back of the shop. He set me up pretty good.

As we all knew Gary as an avid Duck Hunter and his Dad, Buck, had a hunting camp in Johnson Bayou.  I guess it was about 1970 or so and on one occasion, Buck had invited Fr. Jerel on a hunting trip.  The day was a magnificent day with five of us hunting brought in 42 ducks and 40 geese.  Upon returning to the camp, Buck and Fr. Jerel went inside the camp and left Gary, Ricky and I to clean the birds.  This was a lot of birds!  A short time later, Buck and Fr. Jerel came out of the camp all cleaned up and said that they would see us back in town.  After plucking a few more birds, Gary said, “Boys let grab these birds and bring them to someone to clean”.  I said, “Gary this is a lot of money to clean all of these birds” Gary said that he would somehow get Buck to pay for them.

On several occasions while heading down to the hunting camp with Gary, my Dad, had given Gary and I some Hot Tamales to bring down to the camp to share.  The Hot Tamales never ever made it to the camp.  They always seemed to disappear along the way.

I still remember the neighborhood Sunday football and basket ball games with all of our friends where Gary was always a frequent player. 

All of this seems like yesterday and I guess Gary and I had not seen each other for at least a dozen years now as I spent a lot of time overseas and only visited Lake Charles from time to time visiting family and friends.  I recall on my the last visit with Gary as we went out to lunch, Gary and I had both gained some weight, but Gary said that he thought he could still beat me in the 100 yard dash.  For those of you who did not know, Gary was quite a lean fellow in High School and was fairly fast sprinter.

Over the last two years as I retired and settled in San Antonio, Tx, I kept telling myself that I would call Gary and get together and do some catching up.  I am very sorry that I did not follow though on this.  Gary was a great guy with a very kind heart.  He will be sadly missed.  To Sandy, Ricky, Kevin and Keith I am truly sorry and saddened by Gary’s passing.

Jim Mancuso