There are two guys on the planet that could call me up and say they needed twenty large tomorrow and get it, no questions asked. With the passing of Bob Brown, there’s only one, my brother Thomas. I just don’t want to live my life believing there aren’t guys like him still out there; I just haven’t met them yet. If you need a loan, fugetaboutit.
Please forgive my notes; I’m not much of an extemporaneous speaker. There’s always something I wish I would have said afterward. I read the rough draft of this eulogy to my wife of thirty years. I wanted to practice reading without bursting into tears. I made it through, but she pronounced it so inappropriate that if I read it, she would not accompany me to the graveside services, saying “You can’t say that. What if there are children in the crowd? I told the story of my dad and Uncle Jim burning down the Turtle Island lighthouse when they were kids at Uncle Jim’s funeral and everyone was appalled.” I took out the sex parts, but it looks like I’ll be going alone. In this instance, my obligations to Bob exceed those to my wife.
Let’s get the fun stuff out of the way first. I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out on all of it anyway, but I’m sure Brownie would have it no other way. How about the time Boobus, as an adolescent, gassed up the mini-bike in K-Mart on Navarre Avenue and rode it out of the store? And didn’t he and Charlie Atkins put a canoe on their heads and carry it out? Those hijinks made the local paper. Speaking of Charlie, when he was working the boats, he gave me and my cousin, Joey McGee, a joint to smoke on the way home after dropping him off at the docks. Brown found me and McGee incoherent at the top of the hill on Whittlessy Street, at the Garcia’s, with the roach burning a hole in the sun visor of McGee’s ’51 Chevy. He hit it a few times and joined us in the back seat. I can still hear him telling this story. It just doesn’t get any better than that. Now Bob and Joe are both gone, leaving me with only treasured memories of a wayward youth.
I remember riding the school bus and seeing Bob on his single-cylinder BSA motorcycle in front of us. It was unremarkable except it was the middle of an Ohio winter. I guess Brown never got the note about the motorcycle season, or if he did, he chose to ignore it. Probably the latter. Several years later I found myself on the rear of Bob’s Honda 750 going east on route 2 near Metzger’s Marsh. When a semi-tractor trailer decided to pass another, Bob decided it would be fun to pass between the two. I’ll never forget the thundering walls of steel on either side, close enough to touch had I the guts to release my death grip on the bike. You all came incredibly close to hearing this eulogy thirty-five years earlier, written and read by someone else.
“Joe, that chick can’t sing.” That was Bob’s initial assessment of Joni Mitchell. I kept playing her record, “Court and Spark”; her most commercially successful, and eventually he changed his mind. That was in 1976, when we shared a rental house on Starr Avenue, and before the Metro Drug Unit raided. There was always lots of music, recorded and live, courtesy of Bob and his guitar.
We stayed in touch afterwards, but not as much as I wish we had now. Brown isn’t the first friend to battle a long illness and then get away without saying goodbye. So if you’re thinking of contacting an old friend or classmate, do it and do it now. With Facebook and all the other instant communication available there is no excuse.
I may have another 30 or 40 years left on earth and I’m going to have to do ‘em with no Brown. That is tragically unfair, but it’s the contrasting bitter that makes life so sweet. You were the best Bob. It was an honor and pleasure to have called you a friend.
