Monday, January 14, 2019
Dear Linda and Family, I was so saddened to hear that Gerry passed away. We were close friends for a very long time. I first met him when he played in the band 'Salty Dog' in the late 1960s. He also had a band (Gunther's Man-eating Chicken) in the early 1970s that used to practice in the basement of my (now) wife's parents' place on Lincoln Rd off of Tecumseh. (Her name is Joan Durrant, and Gerry was friends with her older sister, Pat). Gerry and I went to the same high school (Walkerville) and spent a lot of time together, hanging out at Colosseo on Ottawa street and, later, at Franco's on Tecumseh (often 4 or 5 nights a week!). We went to those restaurants because that is where we would always find Gerry. He often played Risk (the board game) with a group of our mutual friends at my house (my parent's house) on Hall avenue. Gerry was always the first one to arrive and would always tell me to turn on the 'Mr. Coffee' coffee brewer. I am also a musician, and Gerry and I started several bands that never quite got off the ground, but we had lots of fun playing guitar together. One of our bands was called 'Dogs of the Future' - a name suggested by his mother, Helen. My 19-year-old son, Jonah, started a band here in Winnipeg about a year ago, called 'Dogs of the Future' because he loved the name and the story of its origins. When I moved to Toronto in 1983, Gerry and I lost track of each other, but our paths crossed a few times by fortuitous happenstance. After I moved to Winnipeg in 1989 we only managed to see each other once or twice when I was back visiting family. Gerry was a very sweet, fun and funny guy and will be greatly missed by anyone who knew him. Gregg
