Friday marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Bob Sparks. Bob is best known, among those who remember him, and i don't know how many do, as a People's Park activist, a housing activist, a gadfly and a troublemaker. He was all of those. Ironically, Bob died almost exactly on the 25th anniversary of the founding of People's Park. He was 57, the age I am as i write this.

Bob was also my partner for four years. We didn't part well, but I always always hoped that we'd see each other again and we could repair things. While he was often a memorable pain in the ass, he was my pain in the ass. He was a true anarchist, a Navy veteran and a man for whom politics was not just a passion, it was life. He quit school at a young age but he was one of the smartest men I ever knew.

I'm having a hell of a time telling this story, though I don't know why. i want people to know that Bob was more than a figure in the story of Berkeley. He was a wonderful cook - although he learned to cook in the Navy, which meant that he had trouble cooking for two of us. Prepping vegetables for a stir fry got to be a giggle-fest because Bob could not stop chopping.

We went out to brunch every Sunday, and one of our favorite hangouts served lots of spam. Bob grew up eating the stuff and liking it. We were regulars at the Brick Hut, the Homemade and others.

We came together during a cross-country event where able-bodied and disabled people traveled from San Francisco to Washington. Bob and his wife Sitara, veterans of peace marches, were invaluable in calming us all down as we panicked about not getting things done. I learned the mantra "if it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done" from Bob and Sitara and it kept me sane for decades of political, convention and meeting planning. It was on that trip that i started falling in love with one of the guys on the trip. So did Sitara. And Bob and I fell in love. the first time we spent together - in a church loft in Bethesda, he woke me up with a fake "mocha" - coffee with cocoa powder in it. No one had ever brought me coffee.

He drove me nuts with beliefs in astrology and past lives. He wanted us to be Emma and Alexander. He thought that just because we were partners and lovers that I should know what he was thinking.

He built my first garden, using scrap lumber and dirt to create a waist high garden in our house on Sixth Street, once we convinced our absentee housemate to move several hundred cacti. He convinced me I was competent and strong enough that I was willing to risk going to jail when we blockaded Lawrence Livermore Lab with 1,500 other people. I spent three days in a gym with several hundred amazing women.

One time when our affinity group (Emma Goldman) did a Livermore action and Bob was arrested and I stayed out, I went to see him when the arraignment occurred. There in a line of orange jumpsuited men was this somewhat short, long-haired guy, twirling around to show me that he was wearing a slightly too large jumpsuit. I can still see him.

Because he thought I could, I convinced a city council member to appoint me to the Human Relations And Welfare Commission where I served for a couple years and loved it. I would not have tried it without Bob's encouragement.

I miss his potato soup and his fabulous lentil burgers, which I never knew how to make.

I miss his tender heart, and remember the night he brought home a bunny rabbit he'd found. We tried to heal it, took it to the vet, kept it but it died after several days and we buried it in tears.

He could fix anything, repair anything, know how everything worked and would do what it took to fix it. He once had serious pain from spending all day cutting brush and it took me an hour to convince him to try taking a single aspirin. His Kentucky background meant that he pronounced things in a certain way, and Sitara and I both loved the "flat tire" story, when he asked her for the "tar arn" about five times until he hauled the tire iron out of the trunk. He'd say "that needs fixed" and I used to correct him until I realized he didn't need me to do that.

He took care of a mother who did not appreciate him, but in fact resented his existence and he took it in stride. He lost a son to leukemia, blaming his own Navy experience and never really got over it. He'd create organizations that were essentially him but he believed. He went on hunger strikes, he slept out on the grounds of places to keep the police away and once slept on the roof of a Berkeley building to keep a developer from destroying the historical chimney that he believed should have had landmark status (he served on that commission). He had a heart condition - i don't know what it was - but when he told me that he could feel his heart speed up when he drank regular coffee, we started buying decaf.

He truly treated people equally and seldom got angry. When there was a demo, he was there.

I miss him. We need him and he's long gone.