Be Seeing You

Barry Rowe has died. For some of you, that may mean something. For others, you may be asking, "Who?" He was different things to different people (as most of us are). To me, he was, first and foremost, a teacher. Multimedia class. Centennial High School. 1991. That's where our journey began. Happily, it continued -- off and on -- over the next three decades, and his recent passing is deeply felt.

Mr. Rowe -- he preferred that I call him "Barry," and was sometimes rather tetchy about it, but old habits die hard -- was a fan of old British cars and TV shows, MG automobiles and The Prisoner, respectively. He liked more than just those things, of course, but they are the ones that stand out to me.

Regular readers of this blog will know that my high school years (heck, most of my school years) were fairly unhappy. I finished the last semester of high school on homebound education, to get away from near-constant bullying. The multimedia class I took sophomore year, co-taught by Mr. Rowe and Mr. Smith, was something of an oasis. Barry and Paul (their first names) worked well together, and it was a fun period. I enjoyed the various computer programs we got to work with, and it felt really cutting-edge (for the time).

Aside from the more straightforward assignments for the class, students had the opportunity to mess around with some of the programs. Some of my classmates enjoyed creating audio files from Ren & Stimpy and Monty Python, while I built a collage picture of Patrick McGoohan, in character as Number 6 from The Prisoner. I had recently discovered the old '60s show, as our local PBS station was airing it on Sunday nights. I couldn't wait to talk about it with Mr. Rowe the next day. Barry had, of course, seen the series before, but humored me in acting as interested as I was about what would happen next on the show. I'd gotten a book about the program, and he seemed curious about it, so I brought it to school one day. I told him he could borrow it and, some twenty years later, it became something of a running joke that he still had it. "I need to give you your Prisoner book back some day," he'd say nearly every time our paths crossed in later years.

I've stayed in touch with some of my teachers over the years, either because they were neighbors, or because I'd encounter several of them at the Roger Ebert Film Festival each April, and on social media. I don't remember how Barry and I reconnected -- probably through Facebook. He became a staunch support of my political endeavors, and we'd meet up every so often just as friends. He invited me over to the Garage Mahal once. It is a garage behind a rental property he had, and the upstairs is a sort of lounge area, while downstairs is, well, a garage. Mr. Rowe introduced me to some of his friends who were there, and then showed me a couple of the cars he was working on. One was a stripped-down MG. Barry explained in some detail his plans for restoring the vehicle. I've no idea if he ever finished working on it, but it was neat to see him be so animated about the process.

And now, he's gone. I knew from his last Facebook post in September that he wasn't doing well. Barry was besieged with several ailments during the past few years. His resilience had been nothing short of remarkable, but, we all succumb to something in the end, unfortunately. He should've had more years, so I am sad that his passing came when it did. And I'm sad for his devoted wife, Maria, and his family. A world without Barry Rowe is a little less special, though I'm grateful to have known him while he was here.

In the words of The Prisoner's Number 6, "Be seeing you."