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Apr 7, 1951 - Jan 5, 2017
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Gregory Gusse, age 65, of Palmer, Alaska - died at 2pm, January 5, 2017 at his home.
Born April 7, 1951, in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was the son of Donald William Gusse and Mona Angela (Mastropaolo) Gusse - who are both deceased.
Greg was very involved with music and the arts in the Palmer community, these past 10 years. More information about his life can be found on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gregory.gusse?fref=ts
He is survived by his loving wife Julie Hopkins; along with two children; Walker M. Gusse and wife Loki Tobin of Anchorage, Alaska: Travis D. Gusse and wife Jennifer Gusse of Owego, New York and their two children Travis Jr and Katlyn. Also, by Jamie (Julie’s son) and Carol Hushower and their two children Tobin and Jesse. And, by five siblings, Donald E. Gusse, Carl W. Gusse, Walter D. Gusse, Barbara J (Gusse) Johnson, Susan M. (Gusse) Poulsen; and many, many other loving nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.
The family is planning a celebration of life to be held on Friday January 13th at Vagabond Blues 5 to 7pm.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donation checks be sent to: Mat Su Hospice - 950 E. Bogard Rd, Ste 132, Wasilla AK 99654.
Our thanks to David Cressy for writing this beautiful tribute:
Gregory Gusse could have been anything, and he was. Greg could have done anything, and he did. Shaman, sage, and coyote trickster, he lived with curiosity and courage, adhering to the motto in his high school year book, ‘to thine own self be true’. With deep reserves of decency and compassion, mixed with indignation and a sense of the absurd, he fashioned unique space in a mixed up world, with moral constancy, a ready smile, and a helping hand. His life was a triumph of self-fashioning, with more than an ounce of chutzpah and bullshit, with long-term loyalties to principles and friends. It is striking that Greg never properly graduated from high school, never went to college or university, and walked away from nearly every venture when it threatened to become a success.
Back in April 2013, when Greg was heading out to the Arizona desert, not sure of ever coming back, he compiled a list of the jobs he had done, the positions he had held, across a lifetime: ‘only stuff I received pay, and did with a degree of success… no “hobbies” or junk I couldn’t get hired to do again.’
It began with ‘the Claremont time’, from 1967 to 1972, the period when I first met him in California: Driver, stripper (of furniture?), newspaper reporter, gardener, dishwasher, auto mechanic, cafeteria cook, campaign manager for a losing congressional candidate, tile mason, artist painter, radio engineer, and radio announcer. He also found time in 1969 to be a migrant farm labourer at Santa Cruz. When I met him in 1970 he was courier driver for the Claremont Courier newspaper, unofficial resident in the women’s dorm at Pitzer College, occasional help at American Records, and soon to be driver and personal assistant to the folklorist Richard Chase. He also took time out in Detroit in 1970 to work as an electronics technician.
Overlapping these years, 1969 to 1975 was ‘the Embudo time’, in northern New Mexico, when Greg worked as a cowboy, goatherd, hunting guide, lapidiarist, jeweler and silversmith, school bus driver, ditch digger, and forest fire fighter and dispatcher. The centrality of this experience is reflected in Greg’s facebook profile, where he identified himself as ‘from Embudo, New Mexico,’ whereas some might think Baltimore or Cincinnati have stronger claims. He doesn’t mention his coast to coast hitch-hiking, his struggles with the Draft Board, and the epiphanies of his exile in England.
1976 to 1986 were the years of ‘the New York City world,’ floating between the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. There he worked as a carpenter, cabinet maker, wood artist, exhibition designer, lighting designer, plumber, electrician, interior designer, architect, engineer, construction manage, general contractor, and college lecturer (presumably at the New School, where he also sat in on classes). Highlights, which he may be too modest to mention, include being firebombed by the mafia, teaching craft apprentices at the Cathedral, and having his exhibition design praised by the New York Times.
Marriage took him to an extension of Appalachia, at Nichols, upstate New York, from 1983 to 1999 where he was a farmer, computer programmer, association manager, meeting planner, zoning expert, kitchen and bath designer, home builder, lawyer, tax accountant, before and town kvetch, before returning to New York City in 2000 as a computerized actuarial analyst. It was during this time that he made trips to California, with a work crew, to design, install, and remodel our bathrooms and kitchen.
2001 onward were Greg’s years in Alaska, thanks to Julie. His occupations, between Anchorage, Kotzebue, and Palmer, included tour bus driver, photographer, writer, framer, gallery owner, art critic, and art teacher. He ended the list by noting, ‘more I’m sure will show up,’ including, perhaps, poet, philosopher, musician, radio personality, State Fair judge, and community activist. In the last few years he became an expert thanatologist, an inspiring model of how to live while dying.
With love and joy, appreciation and sadness,
David and Val Cressy, Claremont, California
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~ photo by Greg Gusse
~ photo by David Cressy
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Christine Pedroni (1970)
Passing this way, but once, you passed through well, leaving a blazing trail for others to remember your loving kindnessMurray Mack Gilkeson III (1968)
It ended up being a long goodbye because you fought the good fight to the very end. Along the way you enriched so many lives with your spirit. Whenever you were around, on your frequent trips to SoCal to visit those wellness centers in desperate attempts to keep going, your presence made me feel like it was still all those years ago when we were roommates on Blanchard in Claremont in that house with no heat and the giant avocado tree in the front yard, and then out in Northern New Mexico where I followed you upon graduating from Pitzer.. Now, hopefully, you're finally getting a well-deserved rest and enjoying that eternal sunset over coloful mesas in a New Mexican sky.
2566 Blanchard Place, Claremont, CA (photo by Greg Gusse)