Writing a Life Biography for Your Graduating Class After 40 Years of Healing: Part Two
In “Writing a life biography for your graduating class after 40 years of healing ~ Part One” I said:
“When my only real friend from high school, Bob Cisco, threatened to kill himself, I didn’t think he would. He was right. He didn’t end his life by his own hand that time.
I’m sure you remember Bob. He strutted around in his four-year-old white sweater that he had to earn managing the football locker room. He was the skinny, non-athletic, blond, blue-eyed kid with the big head and the funny name. And Bob was the genius kid who didn’t graduate with our class because his attitude and his bruised ego kept him from making up a sophomore English credit.”
I guess I’m including Bob in my biography because he’ll never get a chance to write his own. He wasn’t very popular either. I remember seeing him “Knocked Down” in the hallway, kicking off his tennis shoe and laughing when he wasn’t a “Converse.”
I was proud of my friend and 3-man debate teammate when (the year after Dave Watts and I got kicked off the forensics team for a curfew violation at the state championships) Bob won all the trophies for speeches. I did not doubt that he had won a scholarship.
However, Bob never admitted to anyone that he lacked the necessary credit, nor was he advised by anyone with sufficient authority to take a summer school class.
I worked alongside him when we were selling women’s shoes. When I went to college, I respected the fact that Bob became a journeyman carpenter. I was his best man when he married, as he had been to me when I first married. I cried with Bob when he did something stupid, he lost his restaurant at 82nd and Foster and he got divorced.
He catered my eldest daughter’s big wedding at “Welshes”, Mt. Hood resort, as his gift. I saw him cut off his middle finger with her bandsaw making a toolbox for me.
We were friends for a long time. I was there to see her tearful sister, Kaye, take her ashes away in Arizona, also last year.
Maybe I’ll write more in my bio later? I’ve been up all night pondering. I really don’t feel well right now. It’s probably MS (multiple sclerosis). It’s funny, I don’t remember learning about his warning signs in health class, or maybe Bob and I skipped school that day? For now I’m going to post this…