I first met Foot at the Relay bar in Vallejo when I moved into that neighborhood late in 1978. Gary was a big man about six and a half feet and he had size 16 feet. He used to joke that when he needed new boots he would walk up and kick two cows in the ass and walk away. Gary got loud and obnoxious when he was drunk and he got kicked out of bars frequently. I would leave with him and we would find another to continue drinking in. Two things I remember him often yelling drunk was "Throw them bad boys out" or he would point at someone and say "Hey, look at the head on that housecat". No matter how drunk he got I never saw him get violent which is good for a man his size. For years he owned an orange van with a custom license plate that read "Foooot"
     I remember he had a passion for duck hunting and I recall going to his gun club in the Valley of the Moon to shoot trap. (I had to share his gun because the only shotgun I had at the time was a single shot 12ga goose gun) He used to win awards for his shooting ability. Over the years he quit going to bars and just drank at home. This made at least one of the local bartenders happy. After I moved out of Vallejo in 1988 I made it a habit of visiting him at his home when I was back in town, which was at least a few times a year. 
     Gary worked auto body repair and I used his one man shop in Vallejo when I screwed up my 1986 Oldsmobile Firenza in my Sunnyvale apartment parking lot in the late 80s. Eventually he gave up a one man business and worked for a large collision repair shop on Sonoma Blvd. He used to win awards in his field by talking tests. 
     Besides a fondness for alcohol Gary also liked cigarettes. He developed lung cancer but it wasn't in his lungs and probably not related to his smoking. He developed two tumors in his back which he received treatment on for years. The tumors eventually affected his balance and claimed he couldn't get up if he fell down. They gave him a desk job at work doing the paperwork. Over the years after several chemo and radiation treatments they put him on a drug that uses your own body to fight the cancer. He was doing good when I last saw him in June of 2016. I guess the treatment failed because the tumors began to grow again and they were going to go back to chemo. He got sick for a week and died on Thanksgiving only a few days before his 65th Birthday.