I had a friend named Bob. He was a damned wonderful person and I loved him very much, still do as a matter of fact. Thyroid cancer took him about 6 years ago and I count myself as lucky for the short time we got to spend and work together. He owned a carpet cleaning business and I worked for him part-time when I first decided to go back to school. I was working full-time at a PVC pipe plant in Weatherford, Texas, going to school 2 days a week, and then working for him another two days a week. It was a very busy time and I learned much not only from the classes I was taking but from Bob as well. You see Bob was one of those walking repositories of life experience that not everyone has the chance to know. Some people will live 60 or 70 years and not have shit to show for it experience wise but not Bob. He had it and he shared it. We spent many days working hard and talking out a lot of things that each of us struggled with. You see Bob's ex-wife and at the time current wife had been JW's. Bob had associated with JW's for a long time and while respecting them didn't agree with them at all and me, well let's say that I was definitely on the way to "getting the f*** out of Dodge" as the saying goes. Great times and wonderful memories.
One thing that Bob told me that I always remembered in the back of my head just came flooding back a few minutes ago. Bob served during the Vietnam War as a Flight Engineer/Gunner on a UH-1 Huey helicopter. He never got sent overseas somehow but did his two years stateside and in that time met many different soldiers from all across the United States that he never might have met otherwise (Bob was from Pittsburgh, PA). Well, what stuck with me was this comment that I can remember like it was yesterday:
"Yeah Mike we had guys from all over. Country boys like you from Oklahoma and Texas. Farmers from Iowa and Nebraska and street kids from Brooklyn and the Bronx. Everybody got along for the most part but you know the ones that annoyed the most? The ones from California. Those guys would talk all day long and not say a fucking thing."
R.I.P. Bob