A depressed retiree suffering

From A Degenerative Muscular Disorder Finds Hope Amid The Flowers

Story by Christina Hughes Babb

Photos by Benjamin Hager

Since he moved to Tyler, Texas, from the White Rock area in 2005, he has logged more than 40,000 miles driving to and from his volunteer job (about 200 miles per round trip).

Seems excessive for a gig that doesn’t pay, but David Gary says what he has gained from his more than 3,000 hours at the Dallas Arboretum is worth a king’s ransom.

It started when Gary had all but given up on life.

At age 28, after a tour in Vietnam, he was diagnosed with a slow-progressing form of muscular dystrophy.

“It didn’t impair me too much at the time,” he says. “I could get around fine with a cane.”

He worked for 30-some years at a photography company he owned with his brother (mostly in the darkroom, Gary says, because he was awkward around people). In 2002, they sold the business and retired, after which Gary commenced to sit on the couch, watch TV and sink further each day into an utter funk.

“Something happened in retirement — a lack of purpose. Like the end of work meant the end of life in some way, or at least a large part of it.”

One warm day, Gary’s wife, Linda, attempted to rouse him from depression with a trip to the Dallas Arboretum, which was close to the couple’s White Rock area home. Gary was no stranger to the Arboretum; he’d photographed countless weddings amid the gorgeous gardens, but something about this particular trip touched him and changed the course of his life.

As he sat on a bench and watched the Arboretum’s tram tour pass, his wife nudged him.

“She said, ‘See, you could do something like that,’ ” Gary says.

But since he knew nothing about foliage or horticulture, save reluctantly mowing his lawn once every couple of weeks, he says he verbally dismissed the idea, even as he was quietly considering it. In fact, upon returning home to his couch, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“I didn’t know enough,” he recalls of his thoughts. “I couldn’t walk well, and I was no good at talking to people …”

Though he had plenty of excuses not to do it, he returned to the arboretum days later and asked a tram driver how he found his job. The driver directed him to the volunteer office, where he met Cris Emrich, volunteer coordinator.

“I went in and told her all the reasons I thoughtI’dmake a terriblevolunteer,”he quips, “and without so much as looking at my cane, she says, ‘Good. We need people.’ Then she gave me paperwork, including a thick manual outlining the arboretum’s collections.” reflecting on that day in May 2003, Emrich, who now works in marketing, says she found a gem in Gary.

“Some people look at disability; others look for ability. If you are turned off by a disability, you might miss out on a great possibility,” she says, adding that it didn’t matter to her

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that he had a lot to learn when it came to plant life.

“I could see he was a good man with a good heart, and that is the kind of people we want here.”

Gary spent hours and long nights poring over the manual, absorbing as much information as he could about features at theArboretum.

His first passenger was a tourist from NewYork City. She enjoyed his tour, she told him, and she even laughed at his joke. The sadness and shyness that had plagued Gary disappeared. He continued to study, and he learned to garden. In a way, gardening was similar to working in the darkroom, he says. The way you coax beautiful plants from the ground is similar to the way an image emerges from a developing photograph, he says.

Today, he lives in Tyler, where his wife accepted a teaching job in 2005. He gets around by wheelchair these days, but thathasn’tslowedhim.Emrichsays that “need causes a person to become creative,” and that was evident in Gary’s case. He designed and built a wheelchairfriendly garden in Tyler.

“The decomposed granite pathways are perfect for gardening on wheels,” he says.

Gary still drives the tram tours at least twice a month — he just slides from the chair to the vehicle seat.

“The MD hasn’t affected my ankles or calves yet,” he says.

In addition to continuing to log volunteer hours at the Arboretum, Gary lends his time speaking to groups, including aspiring gardeners, retirees and veterans.

“People who know me now would never believe I spent most of my life being shy,” he says. “I think that when they see what I have been able to do, they see that they can do something similar.”

Emrich says Gary’s case is evidence thatvolunteerismenricheslives,and maybe even saves and extends them.

“So many people have worked hard all their lives, they retire, they go home, they sit down, and they die,” Emrich says.

Volunteering, giving, doing and finding a passion can keep you alive, she says. Gary is living proof of that, and through his work as a tour guide, his late blooming gardeningprowess,andhiscircuitspeaking, Emrich says, “he makes people believe.”

INTERESTED IN at the Dallas Arboretum? Contact the Arboretum Volunteer Office at volunteers@dallasarboretum.org.

The oldest and largest public tennis centerinDallas, whereArthurAshe once competed, is here in our neighborhood.

If you didn’t know the Samuell Grand Tennis Center exists, you’re not alone. The city-owned facility on East Grand wasneglectedfordecades.Butthe city breaks ground in February on a 2,500-square-foot pro shop with retail space and locker rooms. >> and the management team that took over last year aims to build a tennis culture in East Dallas.

KimKurthandDueyEvans,who now run the center, hired tennis pro Susan n ardiinMay,andstarted offering low-cost lessons right away. nardi, who is from Manhattan Beach, Calif., had developed a program called “Mommy, Daddy and Me”.

“Thatworkedperfectlyforwhat we’re trying to do here,” says Kurth, the center’s administrative director.

Evans, the center’s director of tennis,is a coachwithmorethan20 years’experienceinstructingjunior tennis athletes. as well as lessons and tournaments for kids and juniors, the center offers leagues and lessons for adults, plus the “Mommy, Daddy and Me” classes, where 3- to 5-year-olds learn to play. neighbors Margaret and Blair Cox enrolledtheir7-year-olddaughter, Emily, in lessons last month. It costs $39 for four lessons per month, and tennis equipment is inexpensive. a kid can start out with a $20 racket and a pair of sneakers.

“Our goal is to create programs that cantake a tennisplayerfromthe cradle to the grave,” Evans says.

“Susanisgreatwiththekids,and Duey is a character,” Blair Cox says. “People think this place is dormant, and I think it will explode if people just knew about it.”

Neighborhood resident David Wilson’s 7-year-oldson,William,receiveslessons once a week, but he likes it so much that he’s asked for biweekly lessons.

“My wife and I played tennis all the time until we had kids,” Wilson says. “We werelookingforanactivitywe could all do together, and we found this place.”

TheSamuellGrandTennisCenter was built in the 1960s with 20 courts, and it was a happening place until the late ’80s.

In 1965 Dallas hosted the Davis Cup, aninternationalteamtennistournament founded in 1899. ArthurAshe had just turned 22, and he was the first AfricanAmerican on the United States Davis Cup team.

No country club in Dallas would allow a black man to play on its courts. So the tournament was held at the Samuell Grand Tennis Center, which was brand new at the time.

In the opening match, Ashe was “near flawless” in a win against Rafael Osuna ofMexico,the DallasMorningNews reported. The crowd was standing-room only. In the end, Australia won the tournament, but it gave Dallas a place in tennis history.

The team at Samuell Grand would like to raise enough money to resurface the courts and plan a major tournament to commemorateAshe’sperformanceon the 50th anniversary, in August 2015.

But for now, they are focused on the fundamentals.

FIND SCHEDULES AND RATES for tennis lessons and leagues at samuellgrandtennis.com or call 214.670.1374.