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In Memoriam. An American Friend.

Posted on August 7, 2023

I’m writing in memoriam to friends with startling regularity. I’m not keen on it. Not in the least. Friends I travelled with. Laughed with. Broke bread with. Put back more than a few drinks with. Mortality knocks. But, I’m not letting it in. Not yet.

Barry Gazso passed away on 24 July. He was my friend. A dear friend. And although in later years we didn’t keep in touch as we ought, it’s my hope he knew how fond of him I was. Once, we saw each other a couple of times a year: concorsos in Maryland. Visits to my home in Los Angeles. Visits to his in Ann Arbor. This was before the Crash of ’08. During my first Golden Age. After that we didn’t see each other so often. He moved from Michigan. I began spending most of my time in London. Later Barcelona. But always we kept in touch. E-mails. The odd telephone calls. I remember one such call in 2012 as I stood alongside my Alfa Romeo in a queue waiting the ferry to take me from Southhampton across the Bay of Biscay to Santander, Spain. It was a funny old catch up on the cusp of my next epoch. 

Barry was a lovely person. Kind. Gifted architect. Painter. Modeller. Connoisseur of the best automobiles, and possessed a lifelong love for the game of baseball. So much so he kept a mitt and ball in the back seat of his car. Barry represented to me all that is good about America. And Americans. Barry and I  met in 2002 at a concorso in a charming little town on the Chesapeake called Havre de Grace. We bonded as miniature painters and — at the time — smokers. He and his beloved wife Cindy lived near Ann Arbor, Michigan, not far from my mum’s summer home. We dined on fresh Maryland crab cakes at a tiny restaurant on invitation from Woody Vondracek, the big boss of Archer Transfers. We became instant friends.

When I visited my mum at her summer home in Michigan I would visit Barry and Cindy at their gorgeous country home. Barry came for a visit in Los Angles twice. Always we had a giggle. In 2004 he and I and another colleague from NJ, Georg Eyerman, travelled in my big ganstermobile Mercedes W140 up coast to Palo Alto to visit Jacques Littlefield’s Pony Tracks Ranch museum. He had at the time on his property more than 200 tanks and armored vehicles — most restored to combat ready — in state-of-the-art garages. He often granted private tours. There was nothing like it anywhere in the world. 

A very humorous incident occurred on our way up to Palo Alto from LA. Although at the time, I wasn’t laughing. My Mercedes S500 — fresh from a tune up — decided to blow off a huge black cloud of oil behind the car. I pulled off the 5 Freeway, in the middle of nowhere. And I do mean nowhere. There was nothing. No towns. No petrol stops. No houses. Just dry wild field grass as far as the eye could see in either direction. Eventually a Sate Trooper came along and called us a tow. It was more than 100 miles to a Fresno Mercedes Dealership. $$$. When we arrived some hours later, the first thing we saw was a Mercedes ML upside down where it had fallen off a lift. Oh dear. We left my car there and took a rental. By such time as we arrived to the museum in Palo Alta is was closing for the day. The curator promised if we returned in the morning he’d give us a private tour. 

We stayed the night at a hotel in Palo Alto. I watched a bit of the Wimbledon in mind  hotel room and then we went to a cinema to see The Day After Tomorrow. To this day I can’t watch that film with out thinking of Barry.

The next morning we went off to the museum and had a spectacular morning with the curator and at one moment Jaques himself came round to say hello and show us his Lusitania propeller. You heard right. It was outside leaning against a tree.

We had loads of giggles that two day road trip. And that it what friendships are, after-all. Giggles and laughs. We had a lot more over the years.

But life interferes. As it does, occasionally. Barry and Cindy moved to Wisconsin and soon after started their own business. She’s still at it. Bless. Barry was diagnosed with a degenerative illness. One of those diseases that little-by-little shells you out: difficulty walking, then the car keys are taken away, then difficult looking after oneself. 

I didn’t see it. I was living in Spain. E-mails and the occasional telephone call didn’t reveal the terrible reality of what the disease was doing to him. In 2020 Daiana and I had our little boy. When I had the moment I called Barry’s mobile. Cindy picked up. Things were in decline. She was looking after his day to day needs. I sensed her exhaustion. Barry came to the phone after getting his coffee. “Hey man!” He said. He always greeted me that way. I was so happy he continued to do so. 

Covid. Raising a child. Transiting to and from Spain. Renovating a house. I didn’t keep in touch near enough. I’ll ever regret it. I thought about him whenever I watched The Day After Tomorrow on Netflix. I sent a copy of my novel to him. I didn’t hear back. It wasn’t until last week Cindy posted on social media that Barry had gone. 

I keep a photo on the wall in my modelling atelier. I’ve had it since 2004. It’s my friend Barry Gazso with two legends in the modelling community at Dragon Expo in California. With Barry is Raymond Gulliani, the Parisian editor of Steel Masters and Ron Volstad, famed artist of Dragon box art. These were his colleagues and friends. 

My friend is gone. Poor fellow. Poor fellow.

As always, the journey is everything.