My Friend Bob

One of the reasons I really hate the cult of celebrity is the way it lionizes wretches while obscuring and ignoring the great people among us who choose anonymity. People like my friend Bob Leamer.

I think the closest Bob came to being a celebrity was back when we were both college students in Moscow, Idaho, and he made his living that summer peddling ice cream to kids by riding around with a bicycle-drawn cart. Everyone left in Moscow -- which, being a classic rural college town, tends to dwindle sharply in population in summer -- knew Bob by sight. The local paper ran an artsy picture of him on the front page, tall and thin and dressed in cutoffs and his trademark granny glasses, handing off ice cream to a bunch of eager kids, a smoke dangling from his lips.

OK, so he wasn't always the best role model. But actually, he was, at least in the ways that counted.

I first met Bob in 1978 or '79, I think, when he became friends with some of the people in my circle of friends at the University of Idaho. I had moved north to work on the daily paper in Sandpoint but still stayed in close touch with "the gang." When I moved back to Moscow in 1982 to finish my degree, I got to know him well.

He was undoubtedly one of the smartest people I ever met -- a voluminous reader and a brilliant analyst, he was working on his PhD in economics. He also was a Marxist back then, which for a conservative-minded Idahoan like myself was something of an anomaly. Problem was, it was impossible to outsmart Bob in any kind of discussion because he would destroy you.

Gently, of course. In addition to everything else, Bob was perhaps the kindest person I ever met. He also had a knack for drawing people out, partly because he was so intensely interested in them as people. I know that some of my favorite memories of Moscow revolve around the times I spent with Bob: Hanging out at his place on sunny afternoons, talking books and puffing a little weed and listening to the Clash. Driving down to the swimming hole on the Palouse River and skinny-dipping. Sipping beers at the Garden Lounge and smoking cigarettes till our lungs turned black.

Bob was a fascinating guy and easy to listen to, especially with that nice deep baritone voice. He was about 10 years older than me, but it seemed he had already experienced a lifetime ahead of mine. He had raised wheat as a farmer in southern Idaho; worked as an auto mechanic and pit crewman for racing cars; traveled throughout most of Europe and much of the rest of the world.

In fact, Bob once was the pit crew chief for Paul Newman's racing team. He and Newman, I gather, would argue the merits of Newman's production of Sometimes a Great Notion, a book that Bob revered. Newman, he said, would finally admit that the movie fell well short of the novel.

It's hard to say whether or not Bob ever would have been famous had he tried -- but he was brilliant enough that it seems more than likely. However, that was not in his chemistry. He wanted more from life than fame, and he got it.

Armed with his degrees and all that academic training, Bob decided he'd rather work with his hands. He became an expert boatwright, and spent the rest of his life building large wooden craft. He specialized in huge catamarans -- the kind that are used for hauling tourists about in places like Hawaii -- but he always had a special place in his heart for simple sailing boats and old Criss Crafts.

He and his wife, Karelle -- a special and fascinating person in her own right -- lived in a little spot down by the ship canal here in Ballard. And their little home remained Social Central for our old gang, most of whom moved out either to Seattle, Olympia or Portland after leaving Moscow. At least once a year there was a big party, and the Tribe of Bob would gather to rekindle old friendships and sometimes bury old hatchets. We all could see we were aging together, but the gatherings, maybe, gave us a chance to feel young again.

About three weeks ago, Bob got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom (as those of us who are aging are wont to do) and didn't come back to bed. Karelle got up and found him collapsed in there. He had suffered a major aneurysm and was unconscious. There were a few brief moments of consciousness there and in the ambulance, but Bob was gone. He was mostly brain-dead by the time he reached the hospital, and Karelle finally pulled the plug late that evening.

The gang got together last Saturday for a kind of memorial service at his workspace in Magnolia, next to the ship canal. We gave him three big shouts and said our farewells. It was a big crowd. Many of us hadn't seen each other in years, in some cases decades. This time, none of us felt younger. It was remarkable, in fact, how much we all had aged.

Bob was one of those people who made you believe in humanity. As easy as it is to grow cynical about the rest of humankind, Bob was a kind of bulwark against that. In a society where greed, cruelty, falsity, and the grasping desire for wealth, fame and celebrity are what seem at every turn to triumph, he was a living reminder that generosity, kindness, integrity and the value of simple, anonymous hard work are the things that really bind us together and keep the world from falling apart. If I ever was inclined to give up on the rest of mankind, Bob was a living reminder that it didn't have to be that way. That's a little harder for me now.

When celebrities die, there is often a big to-do made over their departures, regardless of whether all they ever contributed to humankind was a knack for film acting or singing or gathering wealth to themselves. It's as if their fame signifies their superiority as beings to the rest of us.

But it's a lie. Anonymous people die every day who contribute more meaningfully to our lives and to the fabric of society, by the simple and sheer virtue of the way they connect us to each other and to what is real and what matters. The culture of celebrity obscures the importance of their contribution. But every now and then, it's important to stop and appreciate just how much they mean to all our lives, and to reflect on how impoverished we all would be without them.

My friend Bob meant a lot to the cause of humanity. Hardly anyone, in the big scheme of things, was aware of it. But for a day, at least, I want to stop and say: Thank you, Bob, and all other Bobs out there. Well done. May those of us left behind live up to what you started.