JEAN DESAIX

For decades I knew Jack Carey as the “front man” for the Starr textbooks. He was annoying in his persistence but undeniable in his passion. He reminded me of a wandering minstrel showman juggling, doing magic, and spreading news from village to village. Well, Jack juggled schedules, did magic with technology and moved from professor’s door to professor’s door telling each of us what was new in the field. He always had new ideas and knew what was coming in educational technology, possibly because he was the moving force in advancing that new educational technology. His persistence was legendary. On a “snow day” when classes were cancelled and I was home with my children, Jack was in town and asked if he could come by the house and talk with me. (I declined.) If he was half sick with a cold or the flu, he still managed to come by and share what was new, while always picking the brain of everyone he visited. 

It took me years to realize how brilliant Jack was. He was not just another “book salesman” knocking on my door. He was the cauldron where the ideas of many simmered into a fine stew which he would serve up in time. He was such a thinker, but still, his persistence and his absolute single-minded focus about what was going to make a biology course better could make him a pain in the neck. 

Then, I went to a focus group in California and met Cecie whom I had admired from a distance for many decades. I believed (and still do) that she and Neil Campbell were the best writers in the textbook industry. Not only was I thrilled to meet Cecie, but at the same time I met a new Jack Carey. He was not a roaring lion. Instead of going a million miles an hour, he moved at a gentle, considerate pace, shining love for Cecie like a super-nova. I suddenly adored this man. 

Peter (my husband) and I became friends with Jack and Cecie. They were so good to us, showing us their favorite wineries and sharing so much with us. Jack’s was the first car we rode in that had GPS (of course it would be Jack with the newest technology). We loved it that the woman behind the GPS voice had been named by them, Genevieve, and that Cecie considered her “a slut” because she was forever “leading Jack astray.” That was, for us, just a single vignette that demonstrated something we loved about Jack and Cecie: their generosity, their love, showing us around the things they loved, the new technology which Jack proudly showed off, and the humor that was backed by love in their back and forth. 

Jack was a wonderful person to talk with about new ideas, broad and deep ideas from the major milestones in the advancement of science to the meaning of life and thoughts about death. I do remember his passionately expressed hope that he would not outlive Cecie because he was quite sure he could not live without her. Cecie has given so much and endured so much in love and she now is enduring the granting of that fervent wish of Jack’s. May the love of those who loved Jack and those who love Cecie make that pain easier to bear.