Bob Wells died today.

Bob cracked me up on Boomer's "Our House" thread when he said:

"At thanksgiving day dinner with mostly people I don't know, I said something about our house and she replied "I just assumed you lived in a cave somewhere in the mountains""

On a2k there was no bigger thrill than to be put on ignore by Bob. Witness this little exchange on Mame's "Leona" thread when we were speculating on Leona being an a2ker with an alter ego:

Bob: I'm guessing Leona is really dyslexia.

panzade: Wouldn't she spell her name Loena?

djjd62: or noela

panzade: Yaeh!

Bob: ok that's it. panzade goes on ignore beside djjd.

From Spontaneous Poems thread:

1

shut out like flies in the summer
i watch her heartaches come and go
daily

2

Pity the morning light that refuses to wait for dawn
and rushes in foolishly with its mercurial pride to challange
a responsibility that knows only triumph and gently bends
the stars to fit its will and cleans up afterwards all
that poor wasted light, leaving not a trace behind.

3

did you ever notice
the morning light
that ends the night
is not the one
that starts the day?

That was his input over the first 40 pages. I will look again another time to see what else he put there.

gorgeous, soulful prose edgar

When I first started writing at a2k I was scared of Bob too (among other posters)! At that point I didn't know if he was joking or being serious and I don't remember when it turned around and when we even started talking on the phone. He truly was a sheep in disguise, and I forever will regret not
having met him in person.

On the contrary, I started to research about this Dennis Kucinich fellow when dys expressed he liked him.
If dys liked him, he must have had something.

I think my favorite thing about Bob was that he didn't get himself.

he called me on the phone recently, all freaked out...

"Did you know there is a Dyslexia forum?"...."really"... "over on the right side of my screen...it has all of my old threads in it".

he couldn't grasp it at first.

because he really didn't see himself as the icon he was.

his biggest fear was that he wasn't understood, and that people would think him mean and argumentative.

he called me shithead. with affection...

Kucinich and Bernie Sanders are among our best politicians.

To be loved so easily by so many people, that's what I call a successful life. Congratulations Bob. And congratulations to you too Diane, for being as you are and for coming so close to person like Bob.

Dys probably had solid reasons. My attitude about Kucinich was only based on silly things like him using Shirley MacLaine as an advisor and claiming to have seen UFO's.

Dennis has a hot looking wife.

the 'silly goose' part of my signature line came from Bob's description of me during a phone conversation - he never liked me

Bob always liked me, and vice versa. I think I may be the only one of his good friends here that he never called a poopityhead.

Some of his poopity head remarks seemed all inclusive of his friends.

I found a bit more. The first, he refined an earlier one.
1.
shut out
like flies
in the summer
i watch
her heartaches
come and go
slam
goes the door
as i brew
another cup of tea

2.
it's a different sun
that starts the day
from the one
that ends the night.
shadows creep away
when dark is done.
the soul shys the light.

Diane, please take your time giving us your account of Bob's life with you. This is probably the most difficult time of your life. But it too will pass, and you'll be left with wonderful memories of him, as will we.
Let me just note that Bob WAS perfect: he was perfectly Bob. There was no confusion or ambiguity in him. He was wholly Bob. Perhaps the word is "holy"--boy would he be pissed at me for saying that!
Sometime after you, Bob, Luz and I met in our RVs at the lake in southern Arizona (can't remember when that was. Do you?), he drove over to visit us in Tempe (it was Sunday, June 19, 2005). I remember sitting in our family room with Bob waxing eloquent on the damage caused Western culture by the dualisms of Plato and Descartes, (i.e., Plato's division of the world into empirically located appearances versus the Ideal Realm of metaphysically located Meaning, and Descartes' division of reality into subjective me inside and objective reality outside). I agreed of course, but from that moment on we simply couldn't get Bob to disagree with us about anything. He answered all requests, ideas and suggestions with the single word, "O.K." Was that typical of him? Was he so tractable as that?. I'm not complaining; his visit was one of our highlights. Even though it was early Summer we spent hours outside in our newly-constructed patio talking away: pure delight.
Two days later, Tuesday morning, just after he left for Albuquerque in his precious Porche, I saw that his camera was in the back seat of my car. Wanting not to mail the expensive looking instrument to him, I sped off after him on east-bound highway 60. Ten or fifteen minutes later I caught up with him but had trouble getting his attention. He was obviously enjoying the drive under his cowboy hat. Eventually I got his attention and signalled him off the next offramp where I gave him his camera. That was an indelible visual experience for me. Can't believe it was so long ago.
What a phenomenon that Bob! I know he was not Dyslexic but how convenient for him to have the Dyslexic name: Bob (spelled the same either way). We thank you, Diane, for the loan of Bob. I'm not sure why he came alone that weekend, but I think you were traveling to New York with Osso?

Yes, Edgar. Few, if any of us, were exempt, not even Eva. At least I pity the fool that was.

One of the most beautiful "haikus" I've ever read. Who wrote it Edgar? The distinction between the one/two lights is what I understand by "deep subjectivity."

did you ever notice
the morning light
that ends the night
is not the one
that starts the day?

Nope, I met Diane in New York just a little bit before she met Bob - NYC was in April 2004 and they met in May sometime. In June 2005, I was still in northern California.

Tractible? (she laughs) I think that might have been real agreement, or else filled with admiration for you two.

That and the other verses are by Bob.