Bobs, epilogue

Bobby Blake was on our Santa Monica High School varsity basketball team. He married Donna Pennington, who was a cheer leader. They were what we called back then "a cute couple," and they married right out of high school. I invited them to my wedding reception a few years later, and they came.

I knew little else about them until about 30 years had passed.

Donna was at the high school reunion alone. I asked about Bobby. They were divorced, she said, and he lived in Laughlin, Nevada, worked in a casino there as a card dealer.

Next time I saw Donna was at our 46-year reunion (our class really liked getting together). She found me, told me Bobby had emphysema, lived with their daughter in California. In fact, their daughter and her husband had built an apartment onto their house for him.

Donna gave me the phone number, said she was sure Bobby would like to hear from me. I called once, spoke to his daughter, then him. I did not know his voice, but why should I? Our conversation was pleasant enough, even though he said he knew he was dying, probably wouldn't last long.

A while later, like a year, I sent a card with the poem I had written about him. Not sure why, maybe just to keep the friendship.

He died in 2008 or 2009. Donna told me the card and poem were among his few things.

That's nice.

So, why have I written so much about this one Bob? That's the question I ask myself.

Perhaps it's because he was one of those people we keep in our hearts. Something about that person makes us do that.

Perhaps it's because I really liked him, and he broke my heart. First love, first heartbreak.

Who really knows why?

One last memory from when we were eleven:
Bobby was seeing me home after school one afternoon. A boy rode by on his bike, doing his paper route. He was a year older, did not go to our school, but I knew him from church, although I had not seen him there for a long time. Not since Primary.

I might not have paid any attention to him that day, except that Bobby, who knew him from YMCA sports, made a disparaging comment about his athletic ability. I did not like that. Not sure why. Maybe just because I knew the boy from church. And because that's the first unkind thing I had heard from Bobby.

Funny what things stick in your memory.

About ten years later, that other boy and I got married. And it had nothing to do with Bobby.