11. Rob

In college I had a friend named Rob. I have no idea now what he does or where he is. I believe the last thing I heard, a really long time ago, was that he was some sort of ordained minister. Having known Rob I do not believe that this ministry could have involved God. Rob wrote stuff. Rob slept in his boots. I think Rob was some kind of punk or goth or something. My friends were never that clearly defined back then. We all liked different things. Our energy held us together. I still have Rob’s Cure cassette. I don’t plan to give it back. The first time I ever voted was for Rob as homecoming queen. (The second was for Ross Perot). Rob was always trying to make things make a little more sense.

Rob had a radio show and I do remember one of his missions was to buck the FCC regulation that you could not say “suck” on the radio. I guess now I sort of wish that regulation had never been bucked but back in the 80s that was true. Rob would try to talk about vacuums or whatever just to get the banned word on the air. I loved the obsession he had with getting his ideas going.

Back then all my friends got arrested for stupid stuff that was more like for how they looked than anything anyone would really get arrested for. Maybe people were more afraid back then. We got stopped by police for walking with water in a cup, maybe we had vodka? I had a friend get put on $10000 bail for trying to visit a friend late at night. It was complicated by a lot of mistaken assumptions but it did happen. Rob’s arrest was for jay-walking.

I am not sure how deep my friendship with Rob was but for awhile we were companions. We both walked (jaywalked?) everywhere together. He, with his headphones on and I, with mine. This made me giggly. The idea of us wandering around together ignoring each other, in our own worlds. Perhaps this was momentarily a great relationship; me happy, us together and each of us being ourselves.

11/11/03