Robert Gomez, 1939-2009

I recently made a quick trip to Silicon Valley to say goodbye to a very special man in my life, Robert Gomez.  Mr. Gomez was a music teacher for almost 40 years, and most of his career was spent at Cupertino High School.  He was a man of family, community, and of course, music.

  Mr. Gomez’s life reflected the changes in Santa Clara County, now of course known as “Silicon Valley.”  He was born and raised amongst the orchards in Sunnyvale, and as a good friend mentioned in his eulogy, he was a man of the earth.  As his career progressed, he witnessed the changes in Santa Clara County, as orchards and farmland gave way to office parks and tract houses.  But unlike many longtime residents who lament the South Bay as a lost Garden of Eden, Mr. Gomez never regretted the changes—he simply witnessed them as part of life.  Indeed his students must have changed over time, as the demographics in Cupertino went from blue collar to defense contracting to high tech, and from mostly white ethnic Catholics to a Pacific Rim melting pot.

Mr. Gomez was Cupertino, even though he never lived within the city’s boundaries.  He founded a parade that still occurs in Cupertino every fall; he represented the town through taking the Cupertino High School marching band around the world; and he did whatever he could to accommodate local leaders who needed a musical component to any event that they were organizing.

I’m mentioning Mr. Gomez because his work and life ethic reflects how we should treat this earth and those around us.  Being good to the planet is not just about recycling and “going green” . . . it’s about making the land and people around you a better and happier place, and leaving the world grander than when you entered it.  The environment, in my view, is also about aesthetics, whether it’s art, music, or architecture.  We need to give to the earth, not just take from it:  and based on all the time Mr. Gomez, his wife, and longtime volunteer assistant, Sandy Ravizza, gave to so many around them, I would say they were all givers.  Looking at all the pews that were filled in the church during his memorial on Saturday morning—and a third of the attendees were his students—I would say he left quite a legacy.

Thank you for everything you did, Bob.  We’ll miss you terribly, and were so lucky that you were in our lives.