Today I went to a “rememberance” service for Bob Moog. Moog, inventor and musician, passed away last week at the age of 71 from a brain tumor.

He was most famous for the Moog synthesizer, a revolutionary sound generator that forever changed the way that music is conceived and performed. At the service, many people stood up and told stories about Bob. Stories about his humility, his sense of humor, and his genuine love for teaching and mentoring.

I was stunned at the outpouring of love and respect coming not only from his family, but from many famous musicians and composers, as well as scientists, designers, and computer geeks. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I can relate a few stories myself. About 20 years ago, Mikhail Baryshnikov was booked to come to Asheville for the first time. The city was a-buzz. This was an unforeseen coup for a city our size, and preparations were undertaken to make sure that we were ready for him. I had some friends on the Arts Council, so I was privy to a lot of the behind-scenes efforts. I was going to get to see the show, and even go to the reception afterwards and see him up close.

Along with his troupe of dancers, Baryshnikov was bringing a French keyboardist who made a special request that Bob Moog be given a ticket and an invitation to meet in the lobby before the show.

Hanging out to see what happened, I witnessed a very special event. A long-haired, bearded Frenchman in a tuxedo was pacing nervously up and down the stone floor, looking for all the world like he was waiting for an audience with the Pope. When Bob arrived, the keyboardist rushed over to him and shook his hand and started babbling, in French, I presume. I was too far away to hear what was going on, but the subtext was that Bob was a personal hero of this fellow and he was extremely happy and awed to be meeting him.

Bob, in his short-sleeved shirt and rumpled pants, said something that immediately put this guy at ease, and for the rest of the conversation they talked and laughed as if they were the best of friends who had kicked around together forever.

About five years ago, I got the chance to design a T-shirt for one of Bob’s new products, the Mooger Fooger, an electronic device now in great demand by musicians all over the world. We had a few sessions at the factory where Bob and I and a bunch of the people working there sat and talked and swapped ideas for the design. These guys were funny! I TRY to be funny for a living, drawing cartoons for this paper and a few other publications, but I don’t even think that it was my idea that made it on the shirt.

Bob would get this look on his face when he came up with another idea and it would spill out of him in a rush of light beams from his eyes and a great honking laugh from his mouth.

And finally, many of the people in Asheville didn’t know Bob Moog or what he looked like, but they might have seen him driving around town. He drove one of those Toyota 4-wheel drive wagons, one of those mid-80’s square jobs, but this thing was (and still is) painted like a traveling Rubens jungle scene, and if you saw that Einstein-headed, hawk-beaked genius pull up next to you at the light, you’d have a hard time forgetting that encounter.

Ironic that this man, who was so smart, so gifted in the arcana of hard-core physics and electronics, should be felled by something awry in his brain.

Maybe, however, it’s not so ironic. Up until the end, it was obvious that nothing was wrong with his heart.

(David Cohen is a musician and cartoonist. He can be reached at cohen-cidents@hotmail.com.)