Historical March 1986 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
I remember Bob. I remember him even though I haven’t seen him for many years now.
The truth is, Bob’s been dead for six or seven years, but I remember him just like I’d seen him yesterday. Bob and I grew up together. I guess I was ten or eleven when I first met him and we spent most of my high school and college years as the best of buddies. Friendships come and go, but Bob was always there, you could count on it.
The last time I saw Bob was, in so many ways, like every other time that I saw Bob.
He was friendly and full of energy, always doing what he could to make someone smile.
When I think about him, I think about his disposition. Truly, he never seemed to have a bad day.
Now I’m sure that if you really could get him to open up or get inside his brain, you’d find that he had the same kinds of worries and concerns as the rest of us, but it never showed on Bob. Once, in fact, I remember we were playing ball and he hurt his leg kind of bad.
It wasn’t anything serious, but it was one of those injuries that hurt a lot anyway.
Well, Bob and I both knew he was hurt and we went to the doctor who gave him a shot and wrapped his leg in a bandage.
The whole ordeal was kind of scary and painful.
No sooner were we leaving the doctor’s office, though, when we were both entertained by something he had done.
He was like that. Bob had a serious side, too.
My grandmother used to live with us for weeks at a time in those days.
She was, I guess, in her late seventies then and, to be honest, she wasn’t always pleasant to be with.
She didn’t intentionally do anything to bother me, but with her memory and all, well, she wasn’t fun to be around. Nothing was ever right for her and no matter what I seemed to do, she found something to complain about.
Well, Bob didn’t see her often, but there were days when he and I would be playing and she’d he at the house and it would wind up that he’d spend a lot of time with Grandma. Somehow she never seemed to complain about Bob and he didn’t seem to mind at all keeping her company.
A couple of times, and I don’t feel real good about this now, I’d have my fill of Grandma and I’d just leave for a while, saying I was going to the store when actually I’d go outside and play. I’d go to the corner lot to chew the fat with the guys or, if no one was there, to just sit. and look at the river.
When I’d get back, if Bob had been with Grandma, she wouldn’t have missed me. Bob?
Oh, he knew that I was gone, but it never seemed to bother him and he was just fine when I returned. .Just about everybody liked Bob.
He was pretty quiet and sometimes you could almost forget that he was around, but then something would happen and Bob would be right there, standing with you and you wouldn’t. even know where he had come from. I used to think about, compare, Bob and myself at times.
He had a gift for getting along with people and I wished that I had one too.
There were days when I always seemed to be in hot water of some kind, generally deserved, and Bob always seemed to be outside of the fray I never resented it, I just wished, many a time, that he and I could trade places. Bob’s death was hard on me. I guess death always is, but it’s harder, I think anyway, when it’s unexpected. None of us were prepared for Bob to die.
He wasn’t that old and was in relatively good health.
I was sitting at the kitchen table. I don’t remember what the book was that I was holding, but I remember a book being in my hand.
As I think about it., it was very quiet.
In real life I’m sure that I had the radio on, but memory is funny sometimes and all I remember is silence and the screeching of the car. Bob used to run in the street.
In his younger years he used to chase cars, but. we broke him of that habit by tying him to the fence. Anyway, he still would run in the street.
Sometimes he seemed so wise and would actually wait for a car to pass or for a break in the traffic.
At other times, though, he’d dart out chasing a ball or a rabbit or a shadow.
Until that day he had always been lucky.
There were lots of kids in our neighborhood, so I guess that the motorists drove more slowly or something. I heard the scream of the wheels and the cry of an injured dog and I knew it was Bob. I remember running outside and falling down the last step in my hurry to get to him. Funny, when I think of this I always see myself from somewhere else like I’m watching an old movie with me in it. Anyway, when I got to him he was on the side of the road, barely breathing and covered with blood. I held him and called to him, but he didn’t respond at all.
There will never be another Bob as far as I’m concerned.
He was a pet, sure, but he was more than that.
He was a friend and although he was just, as they say, an animal, he taught me a lot about life and friendship and loyalty. I meet lots of people and I often think how I wish that Bob’s qualities were present in more of them.
He was remarkable and I think about him often.
In so many ways he is still with me.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1986.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1986_03.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
