- Bob Meadows, 1980
In the 1970s, Bob Meadows lived just south of the church in the Tommy Nelson House. In those days, the place was pretty run down and it seemed perfect for Bob who was a widower and didn’t hold much truck with housekeeping. He was content to let the dirty dishes sit in the sink for a spell and let his chickens share the place with him, inside or outside, it didn’t matter.
Bob had had what you might call “a checkered career.” He’d done some fishing, worked in the woods, had a factory job or two and now, in his twilight years, could do just about anything the neighbors needed done. My folks called him “Old Bob” and they depended upon him for all sorts of handyman operations, from setting fence posts to washing second story windows or getting rid of gorse. Old Bob was a treasure.
When a couple of local boys prevailed upon my dad to take a dozen over-the-limit ducks they had ‘accidently’ shot up at the Point, my mother appealed to Old Bob: “If you’ll pluck and dress out these ducks,” she said, “you can have half of them.”
Old Bob agreed and for a few days no one saw hide nor hair of him. Just as my mother began to worry, he knocked at the door looking more disheveled than usual but carrying her share of the ducks, pan ready.
“Here ya go, Dale,” he said. “But I have to tell you, I didn’t know if I was a-flappin’ or a-quackin’ for awhile there!” Those, of course, became the ‘words to live by’ that we used whenever we had a job that seemed endless.
It was Old Bob who helped the folks begin the long process of refurbishing the house – cleaning out attic and cellar, scraping paint, removing wallpaper – whatever was required. During one of those work sessions, my mother became interested in an old newspaper that had been used for insulation.
“Look,” she said, “it’s from 1911. That’s the year I was born!”
“Let me see that,” said Old Bob. “That’s the year I was born, too!”
Needless to say, our neighbor Bob Meadows was never referred to as “Old Bob” again!
This reminds me of a story from my childhood, in Hazel Dell (just North of Vancouver, WA); My 3rd grade friends, and I, went to our elementary school on Saturday, to play on the swings and Monkey Bars. As little boys often do, on such outings away from adult supervision, we ended up climbing onto the roof of the school building to look around from a place our teacher would NEVER allow us to consider during school hours. The old, flat, Tar roof was covered in gravel, so we began picking small rocks to throw at each other, and I found a Wheat-back Penny, dated 1919. I thought that was pretty cool, and I took it home to my dad, who I knew collected Wheat-backs. When my mom saw it, she exclaimed that was her dad’s birth year, so I was told to hold on to it, to share with Grandpa Tommy sometime. I think I must still have it, in a can of various other coins from my youth, like a collection of Bicentennials from 1976, but I haven’t thought about it in years! I’m also pretty sure, I still have a Chinook Observer from 1983, announcing my graduation from Ilwaco High, but my ex-wife (Nikki Hartley, not Jenny Butler) may have burned that along with everything else I had in a box with my diploma and Cap-n-Gown? Thanks for jarring my memory; I think I’ll go dig those up! {:-D