Rob Calder Could Not Hold a Job

    I have been in my hometown the last few days: it usually makes me reflect on the past. I may be naturally nostalgic, which is part of what drives such reflections. I like to think and write. The one process, reflecting on the past, can help the other, writing like this, a lot. If I do not write some things, I am not prompted to think or discover other things. I find this action productive and fun. Enlightening. Writing is good. Remembering is good.

    Humor is good. Part of this is to share some laughs, and learn from ourselves.

    My title about my old friend Robert is good-natured; I say it to provoke the attention of others, and to prompt myself to explain. Which helps me write and reflect, which I like to do.

    To wax upon the past. To find and analyze, to construe and reconstrue, perhaps misconstrue. All in a day's work. All in a day's overture. Life is what you make it, they say, and art and beauty are in the eyes of the beholder. Behold the year of Rob and I's friendship.

    And all this with love for Rob, the one I write about, and the love for our shared past, and times gone by. For life in general. But, in our minds (or at least mine), these times are still there, either distant or near. Some things draw us nearer. I hope this does draw me nearer, and potentially draws my friends and others closer, all in good fun and love.

    A Decade of Bosom Buddies

    Rob and Evan were best of buds for 10 years. From the late 1970s into the late 80s. I never had such a friend for such a long run, and perhaps I am in some ways jealous, or at minimum curious. Or maybe I am simply interested and amused in how their friendship worked and motivated them. And then subsequently scrutinizing and contemplating my relationships and friendships, perhaps spotting trends, patterns, figuring out some type of inner chemistry of them and me, and the world. Evan and Robert, a grade older than me, were super close, always doing things together. I saw relationships like this in literature and art, or in history. Famous duos come up always: Abbott and Costello, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Young and Rice, Michael and Scotty, Kobe and Shaq. The latter two pairs actually made a lot of hay together, famously, but then they famously went through tough times and separated. 

    Rob and Evan held on to their link, which was once a formidable bond, for quite a few years, despite the distances, and now I think they have ended most of their amicable ways of the past. The 2020s are not the 2000s are not the 1980s. From what I know there is a not a lot of connection between them now. Things change.

    Rob and I became pretty close friends for a year, in the time when Evan moved away. Rob needed a buddy, and I was it. I had just finished my sophomore year of high school, and Robert had completed his junior year.

    That summer I had work full time with my dad, I had Scout camp for a week, and I had my daily paper route which would take about an hour per day.

    1987. My favorite sports year ever. The Hoosiers. Baseball goodness. Even IU football was doing well.

    Rob would normally come and pick me up, and we would do a few things, one of which I was reminded of yesterday cruising a few of the streets and parking lots of Bloomington. We would look for music venues, as Robert was passionate about that. Sometimes we found live artists, sometimes parties with large stereo systems, and keggers, which involved a lot of beer. Rob and I did not drink.

    We got involved in other shenanigans around town, like scaring people: poor unsuspecting total strangers and "peds" (pedestrians), and random people playing tennis or hanging out outdoors, like swimming or sunbathing. Or walking around downtown or through campus. 

    We used differing startling tactics: a high-pitched scream (Rob had a great one), a grotesque mask, screeching the station wagon's tires, throwing water balloons, or casting a powerful spotlight from the car window as if we were police...

    Rob's Jobs - A Revolving Door

    Ahh. But this is not about all that so much, our antics and behaviors, our combined efforts, having fun and passing the time, but it is more about Rob going from job to job, and not keeping one very long.

    What came first? Bloomington has a lot of pizza places, and most of them depend on delivery. Rob may have started with Domino's Pizza, a favorite of many. But it did not last long. Three shifts? A week? On to the next one. Little Caesar's? Better fit. No, he quit them quickly. Papa John's? Okay, let's try that. 

    Nope. Another week, another delivery place. Then came Hardees. That was overall the best, I think, because they gave him the car-powered spotlight, very intense and powerful like a policeman's. We got some good utility from that. See above, about all the shenanigans. Impersonate a cop much? Not officially, but we came close. Quite a few balcony partiers with beers were thought to be busted by local law enforcement before: WHAM! Water balloons crashed around their peers and beers. That may not sound funny or fun to some, but it was hilarious and entertaining to us. For a while. It went into the summer of 1988, until I was scared straight by a dude one night, yelling at me so loud that the police showed up... (Rob was not there that night. He was blessed to be smarter or luckier than some of us).

    Yeah, that was us a few times. We did a thing with water balloons against other buddies in their vehicles that we called "jousting", but again, not the subject of this post. And we had a balloon launcher, which is a tale in itself, but again... 

    Rob kept moving and quitting jobs. Another delivery, keep moving on. Eventually I think he got a gig with a stationary music store, which made sense. Or did I mix him up with one of his bandmates?

    Within the next year plus, he got a band. Early members were a drummer named Dillon, and the singer, Jerry, who had issues with alcohol when being with me... Not fun, a learning experience. But then a year after those guys, came Tommy, Pete, and Bill. They all lasted 10 years.

    That was Rob's passion. Music. Not food delivery.

    And we were good buddies for close to a full year, and he taught me better basketball skills.

    Thanks Rob. Thanks for the memories and experiences. 

    Staying up overnight for Rush tickets. Attending Pink Floyd and Sting in huge stadiums. Still my favorite lifelong music.

    Thanks for not holding those jobs, and moving on, and being there for me when I probably needed you as much as you needed anyone else.

    It was fun, and funny.

    Humor. Not many laughs in all this, unless I revise and spruce it up more, but suffice to say:

    Rob: you were a friend, and we made it through that year, and I think we can say we went on to other good things. Once in the last ten years I heard that you thought that you were a failure in some things. I know the feeling; I know I have failed at many things.

    But we are victors, and the jobs that you were meant to hold are the real ones in life. Art, love, laughter, friendships, life lived and enjoyed.

    In those jobs, you have kept them all.

    Peace.

PS: IU might be good enough this year, this basketball season, culminating in spring 2023. Can we have a repeat of 1987?

    

    Yes. Go Hoosiers! Go Rob. Forever, buddy.

We will get the job done. With success.