Bob
July 2017
16 July 2017
Last night getting ready for an early morning visit to Bob in the hospice, I was looking for something to listen to on the ride and found the recording of the “Lake Isle of Innisfree” by Yeats. A whispery old recording of the poet himself. And the setting was, in my mind the house near Red Cedar Creek. “Nine bean rows and a hive for the honey bee” would be at home in Pat’s garden. As well as the box turtles, hummingbirds, the ospreys. Yeats does not mention fish but they would be there.
I have always loved how nature comes up to the door at Bob and Pat’s. There was the strong rule to leave the sand on the patio as you walked in. And close the door before the mosquitos came in. But inside would be unmolested spider webs (in an otherwise clean house) and plants and food that was as clean and fresh and delicious as possible. I loved that place. As a child up to adult there was no place better.
Bob was my first cousin twice removed or second cousin once removed, I don’t really remember. When I was young I was taught to call him ‘uncle’. But in my early teens he had one of his riffing conversations with me about what to call him. He came up with “JP” Bob which was ‘just plain’ Bob - to be shortened to Bob. It was such conversations that I remember the best. Funny, absurd, sometimes over the line at which Pat would say “Oh, Bob!”. He would refer at times to this as ‘the art of bullshitting’ and as one of his core abilities. Years back I found a book by a philosophy professor at his alma mater, Princeton called “On Bullshit” and sent it to him. Would not be the first time he was prescient in this way.
He had so many interests. And could talk about any of them in the same semi Socratic way of asking engineering questions… His wealth of experience from academic, engineering to his traveling with Pat. His interesting art, politics, history… Very few subjects he would not talk about.
Conversations with Bob and Pat helped me grow up and shaped me growing up in a meandering way… He was so good to me and so good for me. Rich memories. He opened me up to see the world differently. Take it in some ways not so seriously. Decide what’s important and do things in your own way. So many wonderful meals shared with Bob and Pat and sometimes their friends. Simple treasured experiences like Pat’s afternoon tea; scrubbing clams on the back porch; shucking corn.
He taught me to cast a rod and tie a knot to fix a leader or a swivel to monofilament. Bounce a bucktail off the bottom of the canal or pull a tin with a tail through the water to mimic a young squid. I remember summer night casting into the first line of breakers at an ocean beach and seeing the phosphorecense. Or driving his jeep onto what he called the ‘little beach’ to catch the tide coming in.
Similar skills he learned when he was young from my grandfather Leo, his uncle. This was not lost on me even as a kid and I have treasured this.
This morning I got a call from Pat in the early morning. Bob had passed away in the overnight. I got up and went out walked by the river in the predawn. Passed fishermen setting up. Passed the spot where the Ceramic Engineering tower he referred to as “Big John” used to be and Sibyl’s Cave, Elysian Park. Walked back up on Steven’s campus. Wondered how much was still here from when he was a student or professor. Maybe the old gym and some of the trees. Passed the building where he had his office - a grey stone building fronting the park. I visited him there as a kid and it was almost impossible to find his office, stairs and corridors.
His mother’s apartment across the park… going farther back 1204 Bloomfield with the red star set in the sidewalk and the big grate on the ground floor from a old coal furnace. And Quogue with the lighthouse and its tin roof. Fishing lures, the old jeep with holes in the floor. Fishing at the canal. The little beach. And countless meals sometimes with caught fish. And just as many conversations.
Some of the happiest times and places of my life.
23 July 2017
Its not much of a beach when you look at it. Too rocky to sandbathe. Waves are gentle and the sea is relatively calm. Most of the time a sleepy peaceful beach with no more than a handful of visitors. I came over the years usually alone but sometimes with a companion or two.
Today sitting on the beach I realized my mind was relatively calm. I can remember days walking the beach where i would be essentially blind thinking about one set of worries or another. And I would talk to Bob and talk to Pat. Get calm sometimes funny advice. It took years to relax and feel some comfort in my skin. Much of that I learned here.
Fishing is a struggle if you have some place to go or expect an instant outcome. It is arbitrary to the point that fishermen develop superstitions or jaded zen-noir aphorisms. “There are no fish here beacuse there are no fishermen”, Bob might say if nothing was biting. Sometimes when the tides, the birds, the wind were in alignment and the right lure was in place there might be fish.