Barber Bob

I had lunch with Barber Bob this week.

There we were, two former residents from the Heights, trading memories and childhood experiences. Around us, the clanking dishes and scrumptious aromas of my local Cracker Barrel created a movie set for our visit.

Bob wanted to thank me for writing every week about our long-ago home, but I was so enmeshed and fascinated with his life adventures, I didn’t let him stop until the waitress offered refills so many times, it was time to leave.

Once Bob discussed a friend with a non-Heights local, and was told, “You guys in the Heights are interbred.” No, but we’re all connected in some way.

I graduated with Bob’s younger brother, Mike. His youngest daughter was named for my sweet sister-in-law Debbie. A classmate I wondered about played in golf tournaments with Bob and his brother.

That’s the Heights. A daydreaming poet and a successful, popular man of sports and charities and business could spend hours with linked experiences, 1200 miles and nearly 50 years away.

Bob won a Michigan award for his work with the Jaycees, played sports for the high school and Boy’s Club, won championships. Owned a barber shop, “across from Sheila Lynn’s barber shop, now an insurance agency” before he and Mike moved to the New Center in Troy. He made friends customers, and customers friends. Visited the sick and dying in hospitals to cut hair, harvested hay, plucked chickens (and pheasants, with a clever technique to remove pin feathers easily), spent summers in Indiana on family farms. Could build, design, troubleshoot.

Never lost his fervor for celebrating life, in spite of health concerns that would quell a movie hero. Kept his interest in everyone of every age.

“Did you know Loretta Lynn?” he’d be asked, and could answer, “Well, we knew her husband,” but couldn’t introduce the eager fan since “my father didn’t like him.”

One vivid memory was when he heard a little girl with a big voice sing for the first time on stage, “and I fell in love.” Brenda Lee.

I hardly remembered to eat my chicken tenderloins.

Bob also painted a picture of the Heights we both knew. Our neighborhoods were on opposite sides of each other. He lived near the old high school around Livernois, and I grew up on Caroline, off Squirrel Road, but we recognized the same families, the same teachers, schools, downtown, although Bob was far more outgoing and active in the community.

He ran into Stewart’s Diner for a treat every time their baseball team won a game, so earned a shake every week, with the owner praising him. “I wonder what would have happened if we’d lost,” he said. He knew the details of the diner becoming the upscale restaurant, The Shalea, where I once had an anniversary dinner I’ll remember until my brain freezes.

Bob spoke with warmth and respect of Sam Sheehy, the coach at the Boys’ Club who led the sports team and made a welcome center in our neighborhood. We laughed over events in common, and pulled out favorites—parades, fireworks, fall festivals. He shared why the meaning of Christmas is real to him. He brought up names that painted pictures in my mind of friends and neighbors I knew, creating a true fountain of youth, since you never age in my memory.

I’ve rarely enjoyed a lunch more.

Thank you, Barber Bob, for taking the time to drive to my area and brighten my afternoon, for stirring memories, for making the Heights closer and more vibrant.

Next time, I want to meet your wife and hear more about your remarkable life together.