Bob Watch #4: Nightmares

Bob just popped in, or, more accurately materialized at the side of my couch.

After his typical, "How's it Molls," he said something truly memorable, even by Bob standards.

"The worst dream i ever had was that Dolly Parton was my mother and I was only bottle-fed. Worst bloody night of my life."

Thank you Bob, now I have nightmares all my own.

But undoubtedly one of the greatest things about Bob, besides his lack of verbal filter, is the complete paradox of his comments-- one minute he is bar-room chap, the next he is philosophizer, and the next he is my concerned granddad. You can laugh uninhibitedly at a comment like that, because you know that, in the end, Bob is the most harmless softy of them all. His crassness is just Aussie bravado, but underlying it all is the sensitive grandfather who never got to be...

Shortly after the Dolly stint, I went to go have a coffee with Bob. As I had said, no one has really talked to me about Luwatha since his death. The event has been shrouded in saddened silence, but Bob turned the tide and was able to open up freely about the man. Remaining true to memory and avoiding glorification, Bob started by saying simply that Luwatha was "the best of them." Luwatha never smoked and never drank in a community that relishes both, and he was a father of three who never skimped on a day's work. When I asked if Luwatha had been a leader of sorts, I think Bob gave him the greatest tribute of all by saying "no," a refutation that recalled the man and not some extolled version of him.

He said that far from leading, Luwatha lived a life on the outskirts as a bit of a loner. Something in the way Bob talked about the man's isolation made you feel a respectful closeness that must have existed between the two. From Bob, there was an understanding of this simple, reliable man, who, in many ways, probably fringed his society in the same way that Bob has for years. Bob respected Luwatha for who he was-- a solid, even-keeled guy who never worked himself to death, never pushed the envelope, but was constant to the end-- and when all is said and done, this man of quiet stoicism had touched his life. Before he left, Bob looked down with his clear blue eyes and slowly shook his head: "shame, such a bloody shame."

Like I said, Bob is the greatest softy of them all. If only he had had a little grandchild to bless with his stories and his wisdom...